Hidden Shadows: Tough Decisions
by Angelan
Summary: Blaze can finally settle down to a life with Skye and his daughter, until a friend of his dies. Then he finds outt he humans designed a virus to kill them off, but it gets out of control. Is this the end of the world?
1. Prologue to Chapter 5

_**Author's Note:** This the the second story in the Hidden Shadows set. Before anyone reads this, it would pay to read Hidden Shadows: Truth Revealed._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, the flock or Erasers, they are the creation of James Patterson (the brilliant mind that he is) and I do not own them. Also near the end of the story os a device called an N-jammer. These devices are also not my creation, but belong to the creators of the Gundam Seed Anime series, I just altered them for my own story, hop you guys at Sunrise Inc don't mind. Everything else in the story is my own work and if any places or people resemble actual places and/or people, or they are seen in any other stories, it is by pure coincidence. If anyone wishes to copy this story or sections of it, please ask my permission first. Thank you and Enjoy_

_**Hidden Shadows: Tough Decisions**_

_**Prologue**_

A figure sat in a large leather executive chair, paperwork piled high on his ornate wooden desk. His office was lavish, expensive wall hangings draped down the walls. Shelves surrounded the office with books, trophies and photo frames with news paper clippings framed in them. A desk lamp was on and it illuminated a folder laid out across the desk, photos of mutant kids and their locations filling the pages, followed by their profiles. The figure leafed through the pages, concern growing on his face, barely illuminated by the desk light. The door to his office suddenly opened and in walked a brown haired woman, around the age of twenty-five, with green eyes, dressed in a business suit.

"Secretary of Defense, Sir," the secretary said nervously, "there's a call for you on line one."

"I told you I was not to be disturbed," Said the Secretary, "unless it's…"

"Unless it's the president," The secretary interrupted, "and it's the president, Sir."

"You may leave," The Secretary said.

As soon as his secretary had left and closed the door, he picked up the phone.

"This is the Secretary of Defense," said the Secretary, "Mr. President, I have discovered a problem."

"I'm busy John, so keep it short," The president ordered, "Does it have anything to do with national security?"

"It's about the new experiments in the population sir," John said, "They're ignoring regulations put into effect to keep them under control."

"What regulation are they defying?" The president asked, "Is it going to cause concern in the population?"

"Sir, their population is growing, I'm certain of that," John said, "eventually their population will be greater than ours."

The president was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke.

"You know what to do, John," The president said, "You have my support."

Secretary John Marsten of National Security placed the phone down in it cradle and breathed a sigh. Hopefully thing will be returned to order after this.

_**Chapter 1**_

Skye, Drake and I sat under a tree in the park. It was lunchtime and we were having a break from our classes. Yes I said classes. Because of the revelation of the Angelan and the changed, new laws had been passed to keep us under control. Angelan and Changed were not allowed to go out clubbing at night. There was a strict curfew for our kind. None of our kind were allowed out after ten at night unless it's an emergency. Other regulations had been bought in to keep us under control but there were too many to bother listing.

"You know," Drake commented, "it's kind of disturbing. She doesn't make a single sound in public, yet she cries half the night at home."

"Tell me about it," I yawned, "At least you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to see what she's crying about."

"I suppose not," Drake replied, "although we get woken up anyway." Drake paused for a moment then spoke again, "There is still one thing I don't get," he said, "Normal humans take nine months for a pregnancy to go through right?"

"Yeah," I replied, "so?"

"So how is it," Drake asked, "that Skye had Max in four months?"

I was quiet for a moment. I already knew the answer to that, but I was collecting my thoughts to explain it to him.

"It's because of what we are," I said, "during my time at the Academy; I managed to get hold of some of the research notes on our kind, as well as from the previous generation of the Angelan race."

"And let me guess," Skye commented, cradling Max in her arms, "you go it by hacking into the computer system."

"Don't be dumb," I said, "they would have used me as an Eraser chew toy. I'm good, but not that good. I had help from Reilly."

"All the way back then?" Drake asked, surprised, "I didn't think Reilly switched sides until later."

"Remember that promise he made to my mother, Maximum Ride?" I asked, "He made that before we even met. At the time he told me it was some reading material. I think he wanted me to see it."

"Yeah," Drake replied, "I remember, but you still haven't answered my question."

"While I was reading the information I found out quite a bit about our kind. The first and second generation," I said, "The time it takes for a fetus of our kind to grow is four months. We have a shorter development than humans. It's because it's what we are. Part bird, part human."

"Guys," Skye said, "do you mind. I've already been through it; there is no need for me to be reminded about it."

"But the difference between the first and the second generation is interesting," I continued ignoring Skye's comment, "Do you know what Oviparous means?"

Both Skye and Drake shook their heads. They didn't know.

"It means that the first generation," I explained, "when having children, had to lay eggs. It was something to do with retaining the use of our wings in life."

"But that wasn't what happened," Skye said, "there's more isn't there?"

"Yes," I replied, "I found there was a difference between the first and second generations. The second generation gives birth to live young, without the loss of usage in the children's wings."

"But why is it different?" Skye asked. It was far more interesting than the physics book she was trying to revise out of.

"I don't know," I said, "but I have a theory."

"Let hear it," Drake and Skye said at the same time.

"I believe that with each generation born; the genetic structure strengthens, become more perfect. The first generation had many failed experiments. The second generation only had a few. If the scientists had made a third generation, there would have been even fewer deaths. It's like with each new generation, the genetic structure improves itself, rids itself of any weaknesses shown in previous generations."

"Interesting theory," Skye said, "you have too much time on your hands. How about helping me out with Max a bit more."

"I've only been looking over the information recently," I replied, "during class. I already know most of this stuff."

"Smarty pants," Drake joked, "I could use your smarts."

"Try studying instead of staring off into space," I replied, "that might help get your brain functioning in the first place."

A figure walked up in front of them and asked a question.

"I'm sorry to bother you," the figure asked, a girl by the sounds, "You mentioned the name Reilly. Did you know him?"

"Yeah," I replied, "why?"

"Because I'm his younger sister."

**_Chapter 2_**

"Younger sister?" I asked surprised, "I didn't know he had any siblings, let alone any other family members still alive."

"Yeah, well," Reilly's sister said, "He hasn't talked to his family in over ten years. By the way, my name's Reisha. But I prefer to be called Rei."

I stuck out my hand and shook it with her.

"I'm Nathan," I replied, "This is Danielle, my life mate and that's Daniel. They're my family."

"You're an experiment aren't you?" Rei asked, "What do you call yourselves, Angelan?"

I nodded my head. I didn't say it out loud; there were people at our school who don't like Mutants.

_What about you?_ I asked telepathically, _and no, you aren't hearing voices in your head. It's me Nathan, I'm telepathic._

Rei nodded her head, letting me know she was an experiment as well. She wasn't entirely surprised by my comment, perhaps she had come across other mutants with telepathy.

"How did you know my big brother?" Rei asked, "I've been looking for him since I found out I had an older brother."

"What did you know about Reilly?" I asked avoiding the question. I wanted to know how close they were before I broke the news to her.

"My entire family had been living in the labs; my mother and father were whitecoats that worked in the labs. Reilly had an argument with the rest of the family, because he decided to become an experiment and test the new drug that could change people. He became an Angelan. I, however, was born as an Angelan. My parents had to sell me to the whitecoats to keep their lives. They wanted to leave, but the board said no, so they made an agreement, we give you our daughter as a test subject, in exchange for our freedom. They agreed."

"Reilly might have been changed, but they employed him as a whitecoat." I said, explaining the part she didn't know. "He talked to Maximum Ride, before she died; he kept a promise to her, to protect the Second Generation. Max was smart; she knew they would try something like that and I'm the living proof. Reilly worked at a place called The Academy, where they trained us to be assassins. I don't know how long he worked there. I don't even know the difference between his life when he was experimented on, and ours. He helped us escape, keeping his promise to Max. Later on, after we had been on the loose, Reilly came to our rescue again and saved our lives."

"Do you know where he is now?" Rei asked me.

"Where the wind is," I replied, "Rei, I don't know how else to say this, but when he saved us, he was shot by an Eraser named Lucas. He died from the wound. I killed Lucas, and cremated Reilly."

Rei was shocked. I saw her face go pale as I told her and she began to cry.

"I only knew what people told me." She whispered through sobs, "I never got to meet Reilly. I was born after he became an experiment. I guess now I will never be able to meet him."

**Chapter 3**

"How old are you Rei?" I asked, suspicions gnawing at my mind.

"What?" Rei replied, still in shock, "I'm Seventeen. Why?"

I looked at Skye and Drake. They understood what I was thinking.

"Rei," I said softly, "I don't think Reilly was your brother, or if he was, I don't think you being an Angelan was part of a deal made by your parents."

"What?" Rei exclaimed, "I don't understand."

"Rei," I explained, "We are seventeen as well. I don't know what went on in your life, but as I said, we are second generation. We were created from two of the first generation Angelan."

"What do you mean?" Rei asked.

"You have heard of Maximum Ride?" I asked Rei, "Right?"

"Yeah," Rei replied, "I have heard of her."

"Max was a first generation, born fourteen years before I was." I explained, telling the same story that Reilly had told me, "She was fourteen when Max and her flock died. I was born two years later. They called me a Second Generation. My parents were Angelan, experiments like Maximum."

"What he's trying to tell you, Rei," Drake interrupted, "is that his Mother was Maximum Ride, his father was another member of her flock called Fang. When we were at The Academy, we were told lies. Nathan was told that people on the outside world killed Max and her flock, when it was his own grandfather that ordered her death."

"Your mother was Max?" Rei asked me.

"Yeah," I replied, "She didn't give birth to me, but I was created from her DNA. Jeb got what he deserved at The Installation."

I pulled out my Wrist pilot, a small PDA type device that could be strapped to the wrist, hence its name.

"You were the one that destroyed The Installation?" Rei asked, "You do realize that it wasn't far from The School, located in Death Valley, right? The place where Max was kept captive."

"Yeah, I realize that," I said, "I do watch the news, the people at the school are on trial. I also did a little checking into the files before the military got rid of them."

I fell silent as I focused on what was on my screen. I was searching the files I had copied from the labs that were being shut down. I was searching for Reisha Reilly in their database, but matches were proving difficult. Then one caught my attention.

**Name:** Reilly, Reisha  
**Subject:** number: 2G93  
**Parents:** 1GED9, 1GED13

I focused on the numbers and began to put the pieces together. Reisha was 2G93. She was a second generation subject ninety-three. Her parents were First generation, experimental Drug, subjects nine and thirteen. I looked up the numbers in the database and discovered who the parents were. One name wasn't important; the whitecoats had most likely chosen it at random from the other subjects. What had taken my interest was the father. Parent 1GED9 was Reilly.

"Rei," I said, my voice shaky, not something that happens very often, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but Reilly wasn't your brother… Reilly was your father."

Rei was quiet, shocked at the new piece of data. I could see she was having trouble coping with all the information, but she had to know that piece of data. I un-strapped the WP from my wrist and passed it to her, letting her see the information with her own eyes.

When she had finished reading the information, she handed the WP back to me and sat in silence. I heard a beep and looked at the WP to find a message had just arrived. I opened it up. It was in code so I deciphered it and read the message.

**To:** Blaze  
**From:** Shadow  
**Subject:** Urgent

Blaze,   
I need to talk to you, alone.  
I have tried talking to the councilors but they will not agree to meet with me.  
Please, I need your help.

Shadow

_**Chapter 4**_

I replied yes to the message and sent Shadow a meeting place, encrypted so that not even the military could crack it, deleted the message once I had finished and put my WP in standby mode. Just then, the bell rang for our return to class. The rest of the day was uneventful and boring. Considering our IQ's were higher than most of the teachers at school, we sat at the back of the class, doing our own little things.

Drake, Skye and I arrived home and Skye placed the sleeping Max in her crib. She came back down a few minutes later.

"What was that message about?" Skye asked me.

She knew about the messages I got from the councilors, everyone in our flock knew about them. The council was a collection of the leaders of each of the groups of Angelan and Changed. Throughout the country there were Tribes of altered humans, Flocks of Angelan and packs of werewolves. Yes, werewolves; previous Eraser experiments that had turned good, as hard as that is to believe. They lived as normal humans, although occasionally got furry and went hunting wild animals. There were also packs of other hybrids like the human-tigers and similar experiments. Skye, Drake and the others had chosen me to be the leader of our flock. I was the one with the most experience, and I had taken care of us since our escape. Skye was the second in command, but since she was talking care of Max, Drake was assuming her role. Council meetings tended to be held in large buildings because there were so many of us or held via satellite communications.

"It was Shadow," I replied, "He wants me to meet him. He says it's urgent."

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Terra and Flacon should be home soon," Drake said, "but they don't usually knock. I'll go check it out."

Skye and I waited for a few minutes in silence as Drake answered the door. We heard a quiet conversation and then Drake returned with Rei in tow.

"Um…" Rei hesitated, "do you guys mind if I crash here for a couple of days? I kind of have nowhere to go."

"Are you a lone bird?" I asked, it was a joke shared by the Angelan, it meant that you were a lone traveler.

"I was never part of a flock," Rei said, "I've always lived on my own, living on the streets."

_Do you think we can trust her? _Skye thought, knowing that I would pick up on it.

_No idea,_ I thought back, _but she is Reilly's daughter. We do owe Reilly our lives._

_Do we have enough room?_ Skye asked.

_There is the spare room upstairs,_ I replied, _she could stay there._

"You can stay," I replied aloud, "we have a spare room upstairs. You can have it."

"Thanks," Rei said.

"No problem," I replied, "We owe Reilly anyway. He did save our lives. The least we can do is give shelter to his family. Drake can you show her the way?"

Rei disappeared up the stairs to drop off her stuff, Drake showing her the way to her room.

"You sure we can handle having another person in the house?" Skye asked me.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I replied, "half the food we have tends to spoil and we have to throw it out because we don't eat it. Maybe now the food won't go to waste."

We all laughed at that. It had been two months since our escape from The Installation and we still hadn't accepted life as normal people… well as normal as we could be, laughter didn't happen often in our house. It was mostly crying from Max or arguments between the members of the household, although it never got serious.

"What did the message say?" Skye asked me, referring back to the message from Shadow.

"Shadow said that he had tried to talk to the other councilors," I replied, "but they didn't want to meet him, so he decided to get my help. He never said what it was about, but it's not good news."

"What makes you say that?" Drake asked, coming down from upstairs.

"Skye," I said, ignoring Drake's question, "do you remember that night two days ago, when I woke up from a nightmare?"

"Yeah," Skye replied, "I remember, we had to get Flame to wake you up."

"It wasn't a nightmare," I said, "it was more like a vision, like what happened when I had passed out during our escape from The Academy. I saw something that I didn't want to see. I can't remember it, but I still have a sense like something bad is going to happen."

"Like what?" Flame asked, walking out of her downstairs bedroom.

"I don't know." I replied, turning to Flame, "Sleep well?"

"Like a log," Flame replied.

"Some people are luckier than others," I replied, "at least you don't have to go to school yet. Still recovering from your "Traumatic experience."

We all smiled at that.

_**Chapter 5**_

I stood out on the porch, looking out at the sunset. We lived in new subdivisions designed for our kind. All the houses for the Angelan had been built on hills, mountainsides or near cliffs. You might think it wasn't a safe idea building houses that close to natural hazards, but hey, it's the year 2021. The foundations of the buildings were reinforced so that if there were any natural disasters or such, the buildings wouldn't collapse. The sun had painted the sky a myriad of colors. Purples, pinks, blues and golds streaked through the clouds of white as they floated by on the soft breeze. It was sunsets like this that made me thankful I was still alive, thankful I had a family.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" Skye asked me, walking out on the balcony and closing the ranch slider behind her, Max cradled in her arms.

"It was the nightmare I had," I replied, "I lied when I said I didn't remember it. I didn't want to upset the others."

"What was it about, Blaze?" Skye asked me, concern in her voice.

"I… I… I can't," I stammered, tears forming in my eyes, "I just can't tell you."

Skye came up beside me placed her hand in mine and comforted me. Max made noises, her soft downy feather brushed against my arm like silk.

"What is it that bothers you so much about the nightmare, Blaze," Skye asked, "Is it so terrible that you can't talk about it?"

"Because you were in it," I replied sharply, wanting to drop the topic, not sure if I could handle the emotion I kept inside, "You were in my dream, vision, whatever it was."

Skye was quiet for a moment, even Max had gone quiet, but that was because she had fallen happily asleep in her mothers arms.

"You were in it, ok?" I used a softer tone this time, "you were sick, dying from some sort of sickness. I saw flashes of television sets, the screen always showing the same thing. Something about a sickness, a virus that was going around killing those that weren't human."

"It's just a dream, Blaze," Skye replied after the shock of it wore off, "It's not true."

"To me it was, Skye," I replied, "As I said, it was like that vision I had when we were escaping The Academy. It felt real, as if I was there. I felt the emotions that were running through me, but instead of it being in the present, it was the future. I just don't understand."

"We'll get through it together Blaze," Skye said, hearing the worry in my voice.

By now the sun had fallen beyond the horizon and the colors that painted the sky were fading along with it.

"Dinner should be ready soon," I said after a while, "we should go inside, Terra and Falcon should be home by now. I wonder what they've been up to."

"I think we have young love in the house," Skye said mischievously.

"You know something about them, don't you?" I asked, "What do you know?"

"Nothing," Skye said as she opened the door to go back inside, "I better put Max to bed."

Skye walked inside and went upstairs to put Max in her crib. Then I heard a shout coming from the hallway.

"Oh man, not again!" Falcons voice called out, "I can't believe it happened again!"


	2. Chapter 6 to 10

**_Chapter 6_**

I ran inside to the hallway where all the shouting was coming from and Skye came down from upstairs. Miraculously Max hadn't been woken up by the shouting. Drake and Flame were standing in the hall looking embarrassed and Falcon was staring at them in disbelief. Terra was standing there, confusion on her face.

"Alright," I shouted, drawing everyone's attention to me, but a quiet shout so as not to wake Max, "What is going on?"

If it was even possible, Drake's and Flame's faces went even redder. Then I started to put things together.

"Oh no," I said, "Don't tell me you two were… oh come on!"

"I saw them," Falcon said, "It's just like back in the cave. They were kissing in the hallway; I walked in on them kissing."

I shot Drake one of those, we'll talk about this later looks, and turned back to Falcon. He was standing there with Terra by his side, I could tell by the look on his face he knew what was coming. 

"Terra and I went to the movies after school," Falcon said, "Don't worry, we were careful not to reveal what we are."

"Go get some dinner," I said to Falcon and Terra, "I'll talk to Drake and Flame."

Falcon and Terra went into the kitchen to get their dinner. I turned to Drake and Flame with a questioning look on my face. I was surprised at this, slightly a bit angry as well, but didn't blow up about it. Drake was one of my most trusted friends and family members, but Flame _is_ my sister.

"So how long have you two been sneaking around?" I asked them, keeping the emotion out of my voice.

"About a week," Drake replied.

A week? They had been seeing each other for a week? I had calmed down about the idea of Drake seeing Flame. She did deserve someone in her life apart from me to look after her. All of us deserved someone; after all, we never did have parents. But the secrecy was what got me. I don't know why they thought they had to hide it from me; I would have found out anyway, all of us would. I heaved a sigh.

"Look, I'm fine with you two seeing each other," I said, "but no more secrets. Flame I am your brother, you can trust me, so can you Drake. I don't know why you felt as if you needed to hide this from me."

"We weren't sure how you would react," Flame said, "after all, if I remember correctly, when you started seeing Skye, Terra wasn't exactly happy about it, and she is Skye's _sister_ and you are my _brother_. You see the point?"

"I see your point," I said, "but like Terra, I didn't like the Idea at first, but I'm ok with it now. Oh, and speaking of Terra, make sure both her and Falcon don't walk in on you kissing again. You can sort out the mess next time."

Drake and Flame both nodded and walked into the kitchen to get their dinner. I couldn't help but laugh and Skye joined in. It was so much like the time when we had been caught by Falcon in the cave after I had first kissed Skye. After we had finally finished putting a straight face on I made a comment that had us smiling.

"If that's any indication of how their relationship starts off, let's just hope we don't end up with another baby in the household, because that scene looks very familiar."

We had just calmed down when Rei walked out of the spare bedroom.  
"Am I missing something?" She asked.

"Dinners ready," I replied, "We were just telling the others."

_**Chapter 7**_

The crisp night air blew around me, ruffling my feathers, stinging my cheeks like small razors. The sky was cloudless and the stars shone down from the dark blanket of the night sky. The moon was out and in its full phase; an orb of light in the sky. There is nothing better than going for a midnight flight around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, I wasn't here to enjoy it. As I approached the park, I lined up and came in for a landing. I hit the ground running from my momentum and pulled myself to a stop. I pulled my wings in to my body, still warm from the flight to get there. I walked over to a willow tree that was near the edge of the park, and hid beneath the draping willow branches that hung from it, waiting for Shadow's arrival. Two forms suddenly arrived on the edge of my vision, neither of them were Shadow.

"Nathan," The first exclaimed, seeing me, "what are you doing out here so late?"

"Nothing much," I replied, stepping out of the shadows, "Just star-gazing. You know, it's so hard to see the stars properly with all the street lights shining. So what's been going on with you, Andrew?"

"You can cut it with the stories, Blaze," the second figure said, "We know you're here to meet Shadow. I advise you not to."

"Well if you don't want me to meet him, Scarlet," I replied, "Then tell me what the heck is going on. The council is refusing to see him and no-one is explaining what is going on."

Scarlet and Andrew went silent. Neither of them wanted to explain what was going on to me. They had their orders not to tell me, I could find out my own way.

"Nathan," Andrew said, "You do realize you are going against the wishes of the council. You will be seen as a traitor. You and your flock will be exiled."

"I know the rules of the council, Andrew," I replied sharply, "don't lecture me on them. I was one of the first to become an elected councilor. I know the rules better than most. As for the council, I don't take orders form them any more. I forfeit my title as a councilor."

Andrew and Scarlet were shocked, the expressions on their faces were priceless, and they were totally lost for words. They didn't know how to respond to my resignation from councilor.

"But why?" asked Scarlet, "Why are you leaving the council?"

"I originally joined the council," I explained, "to help our kind get some stability in the world, help them settle in. It has been five months since the council was formed, four of those I have been part of the council. Yet each and every day, the council becomes more and more like the human government we despise the most. The humans wish to control our lives, every little thing we do, and now the council is becoming that way. They tell us what we are and aren't allowed to do. They control our lives just as much as the human government does. I will not let these people control my life."

"He's right," a voice whispered from the shadows, "the council is beginning to sound like a human government."

**Chapter 8**

I turned around to look at the person who had spoken. Shadow stood under the tree. The moon's light reflecting on his pale skin. Sweat was on his forehead, even in this cold temperature. Shadow coughed violently and bent over from the pain. His wings had lost their sheen and seemed to droop slightly.

"He's sick," I heard Andrew whisper behind me to Scarlet, "he's been infected."

"Yeah," Shadow said, coughing slightly, "I have been infected. Nathan, or should I say Blaze, you want to know what is going on, have a look at the files in my bag."

I began to approach Shadow to retrieve his bag, but he backed away from me, keeping a distance between us.

"Don't come close to me, Blaze," Shadow exclaimed, "I don't want to make you sick as well. I'll throw you the file. It's clean, don't worry."

Shadow threw me the bag with the documents in it and I caught it. I opened it up and retrieved some papers from it. Looking through the files, I slowly had a sense of dread. The file contained the profiles of different experiments. Twelve were from Shadows region. All of them were dead, all from the same cause. I flipped further through the file, looking through the list of all those that had disappeared until I reached a red file. It was marked as top secret. If something was top secret, people weren't supposed to find out about it. It was Coroner's reports about the experiments that had died. The symptoms were all the same, they had all died from a viral infection. Their entire genetic structures had unraveled; their bodies slowly dying on them. The longest person to have the infection before dying was a girl by the name of Sarah, who had lasted three weeks before she died. Three long agonizing weeks of pain as her DNA was forced to unravel, her body to slowly die on her.

"It only targets us Altered," Shadow said, "Those that aren't human. Angelan, Changed, Werewolves and the others. It doesn't attack humans. They seem unaffected by it."

"My guess," I replied, "is that this virus is a biological weapon being used against us. It attacks our DNA and forces it to unravel, making our bodies slowly die on us. According to the information, the virus can be killed before it enters the cells. People will still be affected by the virus, some cells will still be damaged, but the damage can be reversed. It spreads by blood or spit and can also be infected by injection of the virus. The first people in this file, the first twelve, were most likely test subjects for the virus. The location where they were found was remote, isolated so the virus didn't spread."

As I finished saying this, Shadow collapsed and I began to see how severely he had been affected by the virus already. Without thinking, I raced up to Shadow and caught him before he hit the ground, ignoring the protests from Andrew and Scarlet. Shadow looked up at me from the ground with a sad expression on his pale face.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this mess, Blaze," He apologized while coughing, "and now I'm sorry I've infected you. If you can, please find out what is happening. Find a cure before you become another victim of this disease."

Shadow's body became limp in my arms, his eyes slowly closing as the light of life slowly left him. His entire body heaved one more breath and relaxed. Shadow was dead and I was going to make sure someone was going to pay for his death, as well as all the others that had died to build this weapon. They didn't know what they were doing; they were going to kill the world…

_**Chapter 9**_

I grabbed the file off the ground where I left it. I flipped through the data until I found the section on the virus itself. Someone had been able to analyze it and had made a list of the symptoms from the first to show up until death. I looked at the list. The first symptom was headaches, light headedness and nausea, followed closely by coughing, usually leading to the coughing of blood as the lungs began to fail. The first symptoms showed within the first twenty minutes. Scarlet and Andrew looked at me like I was a monster, keeping their distance from me.

"Time how long it has been since Shadows death," I ordered, "since my infection and tell me when it's been twenty minutes. I will find out if I've been infected by then or not. Afterwards, tell the council what had happened here, tell them what is going on."

Scarlet and Andrew nodded, to show they understood. Then the wait began. Do you know how fun it is to wait for twenty minutes unsure if you have been infected by a deadly virus or not? Let me tell you it's not fun. The time ticked by slowly and still I felt nothing wrong. No symptoms were showing and I still felt fine.

"Twenty minutes is up," Scarlet said, "Feeling anything yet?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head, "I feel perfectly fine. It's like the virus didn't infect me, or if it did, didn't manage to be successful. Now go, tell the council what has happened, I'll cremate Shadow."

Scarlet and Andrew left, flying back to warn the council and I remained to cremate Shadow. I grabbed branches off the trees and created a pyre. Carefully I placed Shadow on the pyre and cremated him, the fire a bright beacon in the dark sea of night. The cool, crisp wind blew at the flames, making them dance and seem alive. I sat there, without crying, and watched as one of my friends, a former councilor, was cremated. This wasn't the first death that had gotten to me, but it was the first to help me realize that we're always in danger, that some people didn't want us around.

After the flames and died down and the wind had scattered the ashes, I began to walk home. I didn't want to fly because I had a million thoughts in my head that needed to be pondered. Then a thought hit me that struck horror into my heart. What if I'm not infected, but I'm carrying the virus? I could go home and infect my entire family. I could have infected Max! She was only a baby, I didn't know if she would survive or not.

"Relax, Blaze," A voice whispered, "don't worry so much."

I turned my head in the direction the whispers were coming from and nearly fell over in shock. Before me was the ghost of someone I had never expected to be able to see.

"Max?!" I asked, slightly bewildered, "I have to be seeing and hearing things. I can't talk to the dead; I can only summon and fuse with them."

"You aren't delusional, Blaze," Max said, "I am here, just slightly see through. Now listen to me. Stop worrying so much, just be you. During my time on earth, all I did was worry… worry about the safety of my flock, about when the next pack of Eraser would show up, worrying each time if someone got sick, if it was because their DNA might be unraveling. My entire life I worried, never given the chance to be myself. Don't make the same mistake I did."

"But…" I began.

"You aren't infected," Max said, "And you aren't carrying the virus either. So stop worrying. Your affinity to the dead gives you immunity to most diseases. The only things you can become sick from are illnesses that get passed down from parents, genetic defects, which I doubt you have, or if your DNA starts to unravel, but that won't be likely, it's stronger than mine and mine didn't unravel. I came here to give my son some advice, so take it."

"But I'm not…" I tried to say.

"Hey," Max said, "I might not have given birth to you, but you are my son by genetics, your sister, Flame, is my daughter as well. We spirits do keep an eye on things from the other side. I was just glad I met my son."

With that, Max disappeared and left me standing alone standing in front of my house. The entire time we had been talking, we had been walking back to my place, and I hadn't even realized it. I sighed, at least I could stop worrying about making my family sick, but what if the virus spreads and reached them.

_Stop worrying,_ Max's voice echoed in my head.

_**Chapter 10**_

That was much easier said than done, considering there was a fanatic group out there that had just finished designing and producing a virus that could wipe out most of The Altered's population. I walked up to the front door and pulled out my key to unlock it. Opening the door, I walked inside and closed it gently, making sure not to wake anyone. I really needed sleep and now was not the time to explain about a killer virus that was on the loose. However, I didn't get that opportunity. Max started crying as soon as I had closed the door. I dropped the bag with the data in it and climbed the stairs to see what Max was crying about. I approached the bedroom as Skye was coming out, holding a still crying Max.

"Where have you been?" She asked, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I moved closer to Skye and hugged her. Max stopped crying as soon as I got close. She looked up at me with sparkling blue eyes, like her mother. She reached out a tiny little hand and grabbed one of my fingers, holding it.

"It appears," Skye said, "That Max was missing her dad."

"It appears so," I replied.

I gently took hold of her and walked back down stairs, Max falling asleep in my arms on the way down.

_I don't get to spend enough time with her,_ I thought, _that had better change. I want to be there for her._

"How did the meeting with Shadow go?" Skye asked as we walked into the lounge.

"Badly," I replied, "Skye, Shadow is dead."

"What!?" Skye exclaimed, "How?"

"He died from a viral infection," I explained, "he died shortly after arriving, but not before he gave me some information."

"What's all the noise about?" A sleepy Falcon asked, walking into the living room closely followed by everyone else living in the house, "I had just managed to get back to sleep after Max woke me up and now Skye woke me up with her shouting."

I sighed. I was totally exhausted and just wanted some sleep, but wouldn't be getting any for a while yet, not with the entire house aware that something was going on.

"I just came from a meeting with Shadow," I explained to the others, "Unfortunately, Scarlet and Andrew showed up before Shadow and tried to get me to leave. They told me I was becoming a traitor to the council by disobeying orders. That's when I told them that we withdraw from the council."

"Withdraw from the council?" Flame said, "But that is our government system. We will be marked as exiles."

"I did it," I explained, "Because the council is becoming, every day, more and more like the human government we hate so much. The humans want to keep us under control or kill us. The council is now telling us what we can and can't do. I don't see a difference."

Everyone was silent, understanding how I felt, but they weren't sure how we were going to get along without the council and the protection they gave.

"Look," I said, pulling the file out of the backpack, "I'm tired and don't feel like telling you everything. Take a look at this file. It will explain everything. Skye fill them in on what I told you about Shadows death."


	3. Chapter 11 to 15

**_Chapter 11_**

I sat on the chair and began to nod off, the lack of sleep and the shock of everything catching up to me. It was about half an hour to an hour later when I was woken up by arguments happening between the members of the house.

"If Shadow was infected," Terra said, "wouldn't Blaze be infected as well?"

"If I was infected," I said, pulling myself out of my sleep, "Do you think I would be idiotic enough to come back here and infect all of you guys? I'm not infected. Heck I don't even carry the virus. For some strange reason, I have immunity to all diseases apart from genetic or hereditary diseases, diseases that are passed on by parents."

"And how would you know that?" Rei asked.

The look on my face told everyone to drop it, so they did. They knew when I didn't want to talk about something, I wouldn't talk. That was something I wanted to keep to myself.

"Alright," I said eventually, "everyone get to bed, we do have school tomorrow as much as we all hate it."

Moaning and groaning followed that comment but eventually everyone went off to their bedrooms and Skye and I were left alone. She held Max in her arms and looked at me questioningly.

"What is that look for?" I asked, "I am allowed to keep some personal stuff to myself aren't I?"

"It's not often you keep something from everyone," Skye said, climbing the stairs to put Max to bed, "So what is so different about what happened tonight?"

I paused for a moment then spoke, deciding to tell Skye.

"You know how Flame can talk to spirits right?" I asked Skye, "I always thought my ability to fuse with spirits ended with the fusion, that I couldn't actually summon them or see them, only become one with them."

"So what changed?" Skye asked me, placing Max in her crib and tucking her in, "what made you think about this."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I replied to Skye.

"Try me," was all she said.

"On the way home," I said, "I… how shall I put this…? I saw a ghost of someone close to Me."

"Who?" Skye asked.

"Your going to think I'm nuts," I replied, "But it was my mother. It was Max. She decided to come in contact with me from the other side. It appears I can talk to spirits as well. Must be a shared ability between Flame and I. Max told me about my immunity to diseases, about how my connection to the dead allows me that immunity. She also gave me some advice. Stop worrying so much and just be myself." 

"Blaze," Skye said, "In this world, nothing surprises me any more. And take your mothers advice; you worry about us too much."

**_Chapter 12_**

The morning was chaotic. Flame and Drake were _trying _to make breakfast. Notice the emphasis in trying? Terra and Falcon had gotten up late and were rushing around trying to get ready, Skye was fixing up the charcoal mistake that was called breakfast, while taking care of Max and here I was just getting up and not rushing or anything. I had made my decision last night.

"Blaze!" Skye shouted, seeing me walking into the kitchen, "Why aren't you in uniform? We have school today! You know we have to go. The regulations…"

"I know the regulations, Skye," I said, "I know them. But I'm not going to school. The government can forget it. I'm sick of people ruling my life. I'm going to do what I think is right, I'm going to Shadow's region."

Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked at me like I was crazy. I probably was.

"Blaze?" Drake broke the silence, "Are you feeling ok? You haven't been acting like yourself since last night."

"And how do you know who I am?" I snapped at Drake.

Everyone looked at me surprised. They had never heard me talk like this. I had never acted like this. Everything was going downhill again. I thought with everything at the Installation over, the worst we would have to worry about was the groups of people who wanted to kill us. Now I was worried that my family was going to die sometime in the next month or so because of some idiotic person who decided it would be fun to kill us off with a virus.

"I'm sorry I snapped," I apologized, "I just wish people could accepts us as a part of their lives now. I just want people to leave us alone, accept us into society. Now we have a killer virus on the loose targeting our kind and I don't know when it will show here. To tell you the truth… I'm afraid."

There was a stunned silence from my confession. The entire time I have known my family, they had never heard me use those words. Never, not once since I had met them. Now I was telling them I was afraid. 

"I'll come with you," Skye said.

"No," I ordered, "I can't risk letting you get infected, and there is Max to think about. I can't let her get infected as well. I don't know how many of us would be immune to the disease. The only person I'm certain of is Flame. She shares the same affinity to the dead, so she would have the same immunity I would."

"I could help," Falcon said.

"If I even knew what you abilities were," I replied, "I might know if you would be vulnerable or not. Unfortunately I don't even know what they are."

Flacon looked disappointed and a little bit ashamed.

"I don't even know if I have powers," he told me, "If I do they haven't shown up yet."

"Hey," I said, seeing the look on his face, "don't worry about it. I want you to be my eyes and ears here while I'm away. Keep an eye on things for me will ya?"

Flacon nodded, looking happy he could do something for me. I gave a glance at Drake to tell him he was to look after them as well, all of them. Flame, who seemed to have disappeared while I was talking, reappeared, fully clothed for the flight and her backpack full of anything we might need.

"Ready to go?" I asked her, "It'll be a five hour flight, if we have normal conditions, maybe seven with bad weather. Maybe a rest of an hour or so. We should arrive by nightfall. They would be having a meeting about then about why Shadow hasn't returned. That should be interesting to attend."

Flame nodded, indicating she was ready to go. We said our good-byes, a few hugs and kisses and the occasional funny face from Terra and Falcon. Eventually we left, the sun, already up in the sky. I wasn't sure what was going to happen now, but it left me feeling like an amputee not being able to have my entire family with me, not being able to keep them safe. Sometimes the decisions I have to make are hard. This was the worst yet.

**_Chapter 13_**

Flame and I arrived at the city just before nightfall. There was only one major problem. We couldn't enter the city. I mean we could have just flown in, if it weren't for the helicopters patrolling the skies around the city. Walking in wasn't possible, all the roads in and out of the city had been barricaded by the military; all traffic was being turned away. They couldn't afford the humans to spread the virus.

_Lucky land walkers,_ I thought, _Humans have it easy. They've been around for much longer than we have. Always thinking they have a right to this world. No wonder so many disasters have happened throughout their history. The world probably got sick and tired of their self-righteous attitude and tried to get rid of them, but humans are like roaches, they are hard to kill. Just like the virus we have to face._

I snapped out of my brooding about why humanity is so cruel, and focused on how I could enter the city. The thoughts that were in my mind just now weren't normal. I had slowly begun to change and hadn't realized it until now. My attitude towards life was so negative. I suppose that's what you get for living in constant fear of your life and the lives of those you care for. That and the loathing you feel towards those that have always lived a normal life, while you've lived through the worst nightmare of your life.

A helicopter searchlight shone in our direction and I realized we had flown over the quarantine border into the city limits. A warning shot rang out, whistling past my head so close I could feel the heat. 

_Wow_, I thought, _these guys are more paranoid than I am. Shoot to kill if anyone makes it through. Man I hate that order._

"Flame," I shouted to her over the noise, "looks like we aren't welcome. Diving run, now!"

Flame and I dived both at the same time, taking the helicopter off guard. We folded our wings and let the wind whip past us, our speed increasing as we fell further and further, the ground rushing closer and closer. We hit the canopy and shot through, unfurling our wings to stop our collision with solid ground. There is something thrilling about diving at over a hundred miles per hour out of the sky towards solid ground. We raced through the trees, going further towards the city. Suddenly, the helicopter was above us, rotors whipping up a storm, making it hard to fly without having our wings ripped off. Gunfire rang and it sprayed through the trees; they were aiming at us, trying to shoot us down. To them we were a threat to the quarantine.

_Flame_, I thought, hoping she could hear it, _Flame, can you disrupt their infrared? They have to be tracking us that way. That's the only way they could be following us through all these trees._

_I can try_, Flame thought back to me, _or I could just give them some ghosts to follow._

_Not real ghosts I hope_, I thought to her.

_No_, Flame replied, _I was meaning to make the equipment think we went in one direction while we go in another, fool the equipment._

After a few minutes the firing stopped then started again, but off in a different direction. The helicopter went flying off in the direction the guy was shooting at and the down draft from the rotors eased up to allow me to fly properly without being almost slammed into trees. 

"There," Flame said, "all taken care of. Now where are we going?"

I didn't have time to reply to Flames question. I had run out of forest and had entered the outskirts of the city, right into the middle of a military convoy…

**_Chapter 14_**

I flung up my hands, the headlights of the trucks blinding me. Have you ever been in a dark room for thirty minutes or so then walked out into the sunlight? That's pretty much what I had just done. Tires screeched and there was the occasional smashing sound as the other trucks hit each other. Voices shouted and I could hear a commotion going on. My vision slowly returned to me, only to find myself with about twenty different soldiers pointing guns at me. So much for a pleasant welcoming committee.

"You are in violation of the quarantine of this area," one of the soldiers stated, "return to where you came from or we will be forced to shoot you."

"If I was infected," I stated, "Why would I have come from the forest into the city? Why would I risk infecting myself? I'd be mad to do that."

The soldiers looked confused, wondering what I was talking about. I took my opportunity then, leaping and taking flight, Flame diving out of the cover of the forest to follow me. The guards responded slowly so we were able to get a good head start, then they began to open fire on us. I had once heard a saying that everyone in life has a bullet that is meant to kill them, the question is, can you outlive that bullet and die of old age before it finds you? Well, it seemed we had annoyed the fates and had about a hundred bullets after us right then. Talk about overkill. There was no way for us to outfly bullets. I have an affinity towards the dead, that doesn't make me superman, but I would prefer not being a target practice dummy and meeting them on the other side. I threw up a telekinetic shield that seemed to stop the bullets from hitting us, but each bullet required me to use energy to keep the shield up. I don't know how long I could have kept that up.

After a few minutes of flying and trying to keep the shield up, we found a place to hide out. A new apartment complex that still needed to finish construction, but with the quarantine, was put on hold. The upper floors were nothing but framework, but the lower floors had unfurnished apartments with locks. In between were the partially completed apartments, no doors, no furniture, no walls; but they had insulation, and best of all, it was nice, warm, dry and quiet. We landed in one and collapsed on the ground.

"Remind me never to do that again," I told Flame.

"What?" Flame replied, "Antagonize the military? Trust me, if you do that again, I'll shoot you myself."

I laughed at that, we both did. It was so like Flame, how she was before she was taken away four years ago. She had been caring for me when I was sick as I cared for her when she was. We helped each other survive. We also drove each other around the bend at times, but what's life without a few sibling arguments?

**_Chapter 15_**

"So," I said, after a moment of silence, "you and Drake have been going out for about a week? I'm happy you found someone, Flame." 

"But?" Flame asked.

"Make sure Terra and Falcon don't catch you kissing again," I replied, "I can't keep fixing up your mistakes like last time."

We started laughing again at that comment. It was good to be able to just hang with my sister after four years of not knowing if she was alive or not. Now that I had seen what Max looked like, I saw the resemblance between them. Flame had the same blond hair Max had, although it wasn't streaked; even her face kind of resembled Max's. It's strange just realizing all this about Flame, especially since I had only met Max recently, from beyond the grave, so to speak, it would be hard to say that since we cremate our dead. But I had known Flame most of my life, it just felt strange only realizing it now. 

"You know what?" Flame said, "Drake is different in how he acts around everyone. With me he's kind, caring, sweet and - best of all - he's not afraid to show it around me."

"I always knew there was more to him," I replied, "than the silent, second-in-command guy he always showed around home. I remember when I first met him back at The Academy; he tried to stab me with a knife when I tried to help him. Survival instincts had kicked in on his trip there. I disarmed him without trouble, but that's not my point. Drake always guarded against anyone reading him. Hardly talked, always guarded his body language. It was hard to know him. But I knew he would have had a softer side."

"Yeah," Flame replied, "I guess he always did, but it took someone special to get him to show it."

We were silent for a moment; the sound of the traffic could barely be heard through the walls, although we were a few floors off the ground. Then Flame spoke.

"You do realize that with everything that is going on in the household, all of us would become a family anyway." She continued, "We may not be blood related, but because of your relationship with Skye, we are related to Skye and Terra, as well as Max. The only people left out are Drake and Falcon, but Drake chose me, so we're almost a complete happy family. Except for Falcon."

"I wouldn't leave him out of the equation just yet," I commented, "Skye made it known to me that we have young love in the house. Although, they are only eleven. I don't see how that's possible." 

"Well," Flame said, "If I remember correctly, there was something you said about our kind, about how we mature faster than humans, although we live longer."

"So?" I asked.

"So," Flame replied, "that means both Terra and Falcon are capable of feeling emotions like we do. They are more mature mentally than they are physically."

"I suppose that's a good point," I replied, "you wouldn't happen to know the time though? I think a stray bullet hit my watch. It's busted."


	4. Chapter 16 to 20

**_Chapter 16_**

I stood outside the seemingly abandoned theatre in the slums of the city; the darkness of night surrounded me and chilled me to the bone. I had almost missed the meeting that was on tonight. My regional meeting was scheduled for tonight, so the others would have been as well. Now you may think it's stupid that we hold the regional meetings at the same time, but if anyone wanted to bust them all up at once, they'd need plenty of people to do that. It was the council meetings we had to separate, always at unknown locations apart from those attending, and they are never on the same day or at the same time.

I was already late for the meeting, but I usually knew how to make an entrance. Flame was next to me, looking up at the stars in the night sky. I walked up to the door way and entered into the foyer. I could hear talking going on in the theatre beyond, hear the shouting of the leaders, the cries of those attending. I walked to the theatre entrance and pushed open the door. The theatre was set up in a circular room. Tiers upon tiers of seats went up in rings around the central stage in the middle of the room. Like everything else, the stage was circular. Movies were played on the hologram projectors and gave a 3D vision of the scene. The theatre was not in good condition, the projectors broken, the seats weren't the best but were still useable Most of them full, but there were the occasional empty seats, signs that the virus was spreading.

"We are in danger here," the representative on the stage was saying, "Have you noticed that the military presence has increased since the virus was found, yet no-one is giving us the hope of a cure? We are dying, and all they can do is contain it so that no-one else gets infected. What about us? What about those infected? What about those already dead? We have tried to get the attention of the council, yet what do they do? They turn us away. They turned Shadow away from them, and so he turned to the last person he knew could help him."

"Me," I said from the doorway.

I walked down the stairs and approached the stage, ignoring the stares of the crowd. The representative had stopped to look at me as I approached the stage.

"Shadow came and saw me," I said, "last night, right before he died from the infection. Now I would like some answers to my questions. First off, you mentioned the military, how their presence had increased to quarantine the city. What do you mean by increased? There should have been no need for the military here."

"Our thoughts exactly," the representative said, "Over the month, we have noticed a few military people in the neighborhood, but they have kept to themselves, and now we have quarantine. It's like they expected something to happen. Now, if you don't mind me asking, who are you?"

"Some people would know me by the name Nathan Corway," I replied, "Others, people who know me better would know me by the name of Blaze."

An intake of breath swept though the theatre as every person heard my name. It seems you become very well known when you blow up a whitecoat lab. That and the fact that some people knew who my parents were, but I doubt most of these people would know that.

"You are second generation, right?" the representative said.

"Of course I am," I replied, "Don't you think I'm a little young to be a first generation and a little old to be third generation?" 

"It's just that we have found some first generation in our region," the Representative said, "we thought two of them might be your parents."

**_Chapter 17_**

"I highly doubt that," I replied, "My parents are dead. I found information on them when I was being held at The Academy."

There were shivers around the room at the mention of The Academy. People had known about that place, especially after our escapes, but surprisingly, the Government hadn't been able to find it. No-one of our kind was willing to go back there. Not if they could help it. 

"They died before I was born," I continued, "And I was created by the whitecoats from combining their DNA. There is nothing special about me. I'm just like everyone else here."

"Then why did you come here?" Someone shouted from the audience, "Why risk yourself to infection?"

"Because I'm searching for the truth!" I shouted back, "I'm searching for who created this virus, why they did, although that may be pretty obvious, and I'm searching to see if there is a cure for the virus. I don't want it spreading; I don't want it to kill the ones I care about. I don't want my daughter to die from this virus." 

Many murmurs of agreement ran through the crowd. People saw where I was coming from, why I was doing it, but they couldn't see how, considering I was just as susceptible to getting infected as they were.

"But the main reason why my sister and I came here," I said, indicating Flame standing just inside the doorway, "is so that we can search for the answers without being infected."

Outraged cries came from the audience. People couldn't see how that two people, out of their entire species could be immune to the virus. But they also couldn't see how we weren't trying to create a cure from it.

"It is our shared ability to connect with the dead themselves that gives us this ability," I shouted over the noise, instantly silencing the crowd, "Because of our affinity towards the dead, we have an immunity to all diseases and viruses except for genetic diseases or sicknesses passed on by parents. There is only one problem with our immunity, and that is that it doesn't help anyone other than me or my sister. We can't make a cure from it."

After everyone seemed to calm down a bit, the meeting continued like any other meeting I had attended. People updated the representatives on events that had been going on so that the representatives could report to the council, although I doubt these people would be able to talk to the council. That was up to me.

After the meeting finished the representative invited Flame and I to return to his apartment to talk. As we stepped in through the door, he removed the cloak he was wearing to reveal short light-brown hair that sat mop-like on his head, in a similar style to mine. The wings he revealed were pitch black, no sign of any other color amongst them. Both were around fifteen feet in length and were folded tightly against the indentation along his spine, like most Angelan do when in public to hide what they are. He turned to look at Flame and I and I saw his eyes. They were a deep blue, almost black in color, which disturbed most people who only gave a glance at him. You had to look closely to see that they were actually blue, and it helps having our enhanced vision as well. It was those eyes that made me realize something.

"You're Shadow's brother," I stated calmly, "aren't you."

**_Chapter 18_ **

"Yes," he said, "I am. My name is Dark. I'm glad to meet you, Blaze. Shadow has said so much about your leadership skills. He said that you taught him a few tricks before he died. Tell me truthfully though; was he in pain when he died?"

"He was in pain," I answered truthfully, "but that was because he was infected, his death was quick and he died peacefully. Dark, there is one thing. Shadow gave me a file before he died. It held information about the virus and the first people found dead because of it. Dark, how did Shadow get that information?"

Dark sighed, leaning back on the couch and was silent for a moment, thinking about what to say to me.

"Shadow was the first to notice the military presence in the area," Dark answered, "He was suspicious at first and inquired as to what was going on, but he never got any information. So he 'monitored their communications', no doubt a trick you taught him. That's how he got most of the information. As for the files on the virus I don't know how he got them, neither do I know how he got the files on the test subjects. But the outbreak was because one of the experiments escaped from wherever they were being tested. But she was already infected when she escaped. Shadow found out about her escape through his monitoring. He went to see if he could help her, not knowing she was infected. He found her dying in the forest. It was then he realized what was going on and tried to get in contact with the council, but they didn't want to meet him, not outside of the normal schedule. It cost him his life. But I am glad he got through to you."

"You do realize that Shadow could be the one responsible for releasing the virus into the public, don't you?" I asked, "He could have been the one who brought it back here and infected others."

"Yes," Dark said, sighing, "I do realize that. Although, I was the one in most contact with him and I haven't been infected."

"Perhaps certain powers grant people immunity to the virus," Flame said. "If you don't mind me asking, what is your ability?"

"Can't you tell?" Dark said, "I chose my name for a reason. I can manipulate darkness, shadows, and things like that. I can even make shadows solid enough to cause physical damage."

"Interesting," I replied, "But at the moment I can't see a connection between the two abilities. If we can find a connection between those immune to the virus, we might be able to find a cure from It."

"Well, you're welcome to stay here," Dark said, "I doubt you'll be able to leave the city now. Not with the quarantine and all. The soldiers have a shoot to kill order for anyone trying to leave or enter the city illegally."

"I've already met the welcome wagon," I said. "They're a happy bunch. Thanks for letting us stay here though. You got a map anywhere?" 

"Yeah," Dark said while pointing to the wall opposite the window, "Over there. Shadow wanted a wall sized map of the country so we placed it up there. Why?" 

"Thanks," I replied, "I just have something to sort out. That's all."

**_Chapter 19_**

_**Journal Entry 18 March 2021:** __  
__Been a long time since I have written in here. Looking over this stuff makes me appreciate all that I have: Skye, Drake, Flame, Terra, Falcon and Max. Rei's new to the flock, but even so, the others seemed to warm up to her quickly. That's why I am furious as I write this. The data Shadow gave me held the locations of where each of the twelve test subjects died, including the girl Shadow had found. I marked them on the map, all the locations; and all of them-all twelve deaths-are linked together at one singular point: a certain area of the forest outside the city. But the thing that makes me furious is the fact that they all point to a single part of the map that is blank. You know what that means. Whenever you see a blank point on a map, chances are that a top secret lab or something is being kept hidden. ___

_The point I found was one of those, just as I suspected. There was a lab outside the city where they experiment with different diseases that can control or kill our kind. Can't people like that just leave us alone? We haven't done anything wrong except exist, and that's the only excuse they need. I need to find out about this place, who's running it and what they are doing there. To tell the truth, I am still furious, but the question is, how long have they been there? How many people have been killed because of their experiments? All of this brings back memories of my childhood. Always being constantly afraid of what would happen next, what they would do to you. I don't believe anyone should go through that, not even the people I hated for doing it, although sometime I had dreams of reversing the roles. Welcome to the world of the sick and twisted. I just hope Skye and Max are alright. I hope the rest of the flock is as well. I don't want any of them to get sick on me, I don't want them dying. There is already enough death already._

I stopped writing in my journal and placed it back in my pack. It had been a while since I had last seen it. Last time I had written in it was before Max was born. After that I was too busy with life and everything in it. I lay back on the bed Dark had lent me and stared up at the stars in the night sky through the skylight in the roof, thoughts of Skye and Max entering my mind as I fell asleep. 

_Goodnight Skye and Max,_ I thought, wishing I could be with them, _goodnight and please, please be safe._

**_Chapter 20_**

I had just finished falling asleep to the silence of the apartment when my cell phone began to ring on the bedside cabinet. My exhausted brain took a moment to register what it was before I picked it up. 

"Hello?" I asked, looking towards the clock on the bedside cabinet close to where I had left my phone. It was only ten thirty at night, but I had been able to get a full hour of sleep without interruptions. 

"Nathan," Skye replied, "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," I replied, "Is everything alright back at home?"

I heard a crash over the phone and a yelp of pain.

"It's chaotic as ever," Skye replied, "Falcon figured out one of his powers. He is a teleport. He's been trying it out all over the place."

"How did he find out?" I asked, listening to the background noise of more crashing, shouts of surprise and annoyance, "Shouldn't everyone be in bed?"

"He accidentally teleported himself into the next door neighbor's pool," Skye replied, "he came to the front door dripping wet and looking like a drowned rat."

I laughed at that. Picturing Falcon as a drowned rat was one thing. But now being able to teleport? I could just imagine him popping up around the house and causing mischief. After I finished laughing and got serious I spoke again.

"But that's not the reason you originally phoned me," I asked, "Is it?"

"No, it isn't," Skye replied. "Even this far apart, you still know what I'm thinking without using your powers."

"I guess it's just the bond we have," I replied. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Turn on the TV," Skye replied. "There is something on the news you might want to see. It's about the 'epidemic' as they call it." 

I turned on the TV and switched to the news channel. The news was just coming back from an advert break and had just started talking about an injection to slow down the infection of the virus. They were calling it a suppressant, a way for scientists to get enough time to analyze the virus and find a cure…


	5. Chapter 21 to 25

**_Chapter 21_**

A cure? The words echoed around in my head as whispers from the dead began all around me, growing louder and louder, becoming shouts, warnings. My world grew fuzzy and I dropped the cell phone onto the floor. The shouts continued and my vision became more blurry until I had to close my eyes. The whispers slowly died until they eventually disappeared. After a moment of silence, I opened my eyes.

_What the heck! _I thought, _this is not happening, not again. It can't be happening, I'm not asleep._

But it was happening. For some unknown reason I was enduring another of my out-of-body experiences, while I was still awake. This was getting strange. I was sitting in the same room, but the date on the calendar said it was the 25th March 2021, a week from now. The TV was on, the news showing, something about the new suppressant. I listened to the newscaster report about the suppressant was having the exact opposite effect than what it was made for. Instead of slowing the virus down, it was speeding it up. Our kind was dying twice as fast as before. I heard the whisper urging me to delve further into the future. I closed my eyes…

And opened them onto a completely different scene. I was standing outside in the street, looking into the window of a shop full of TVs. There was a broadcast from the president. His face was grim as he addressed the country. I listened to his speech, listened to his words waiting for the next piece of information, and then it came. The announcement was that with the population of the Altered diminished and the virus' host supply extremely low, the virus had mutated and was now infecting humans and that no cure was to be found. But the worst thing was, humans had no immunity to the virus whatsoever. The whispers started and I closed my eyes again.

The next view was even worse. The streets were abandoned, the shops were shuttered closed, boards of wood were covering the windows and doors and there were cars left abandoned in the street. I looked around and found one of the stores still open, it was the same one from the other visions, the one with the TVs in it. Most of the TVs had been stolen, or were broken. One was still working and had a video playing. The video was grimmer than the speech given by the President. It showed views of New York, people who had lain down and died from the disease, littered the streets. Traffic was still backed up on the roads, but their drivers had either abandoned their vehicles or had died at the wheel. It was all so disgusting and slightly horrific. What made it worse was the fact that the video was being narrated by a surviving human. It seemed that some people were lucky enough to have survived the epidemic. All of this because someone had decided that they didn't want to share a world with our kind. This time the whispers from the dead didn't come, but it was Skye's voice that penetrated my vision.

I snapped out of it and realized I had dropped the cell phone on the ground and picked it up. A frantic Skye was on the other end, repeating my name over and over, trying to get my attention. 

"Skye," I said, still shaking from the vision, "What ever you do, do not get any injection for the suppressant, at all. It will only make things worse."

"Blaze," Skye replied, "I was worried, I heard the phone drop and you didn't reply, what is going on there?"

"I just had another vision," I answered, "This suppressant will only make matters worse. Do not let them inject you with it. I'm afraid it's already too late to stop what is going to happen…"

**Chapter 22**

"What is going to happen?" Skye asked, "Nathan, what did you see?" 

I stood there quietly, not answering her question at first. I mean, how can you tell someone that you've just finished seeing the end of all civilization as we know it? If anyone knows the answer, please, tell me now.

"I saw…" I hesitated in telling her, but I had to, "I saw that things might get worse, a lot worse. The virus may destroy most of our population and then infect the humans."

"My god!" Skye gasped, "Is it that bad?"

"It's worse," I replied. "From what I saw after that, all civilization on earth as we know it will be devastated. It won't recover. We may be looking at the end of the world unless something happens to stop it."

Both of us went silent. Myself to ponder my next move, what I was going to do next to try to prevent what I had just seen, and Skye, to absorb the information that I had just told her.

"Skye," I said, breaking the silence, "I want you to be safe. I want you to keep everyone there safe. Promise me that if things get too bad, you will get out of here, you will go somewhere safe. Please promise me that."

"Blaze…"Skye replied.

"Skye," I said again, "Please promise me. Please."

"Alright," Skye replied, "I promise. Be safe…"

"You too, Skye," I replied as I hung up the phone, then whispered to myself, "Be safe."

I walked back to the room Dark had lent me and placed my cell phone down on the bedside cabinet. I collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the roof. Before I had been tired, now I was too scared to go to sleep. I was afraid of what I might see in my dreams. I had to stop it from happening. I had to stop this virus from killing all those people, from destroying civilization as we know it. Tomorrow I was going to go check out the blank spot on the map. The one that all the dead bodies were all centered around. I was sure there was a lab or a base there. I had to find out what was going on, before things got out of hand. We needed a cure soon, within the next week or so, if I was to stop the things I saw from happening. Eventually I drifted off to a dreamless sleep, no thoughts or visions penetrating the shroud of darkness that engulfed my mind.

**Chapter 23**

I woke to the smell of bacon wafting through the apartment. It was something I should have been used to, what with our household so full of people always rushing around in the morning. Surprisingly it wasn't Skye who cooked it, but Dark. To be honest, Dark is a really good cook; he should open his own restaurant, if we all survive what's going on now.

I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled down the hallway to the shower. Once it was warm I hopped in and let the hot water run down my back, feeling my muscles relax slightly, feeling my feathers become saturated and heavy from the water. I spent most of my day with my wings tucked up against my back, always afraid to show what I was, in case my family was targeted by one of the groups that wanted us dead. Here, people were too busy about surviving to worry about which group people belong to.

Once I was finished, I hopped out of the shower and dried myself off, flapping my wings to dry the feathers. I threw on a new pair of jeans and a t-shirt; slipping my wings through the slits, leaving them open to dry properly. Trying to fly with wet wings is not fun, the damp feathers added extra weight to carry around. I looked up and saw my reflection in the mirror. My dirty blond colored hair was matted and damp, plastered to my head and looking like it hadn't been combed in my entire life, which it hadn't. My eyes, an unnatural pale violet color that definitely didn't come from my genes, were haunted by dreams that no-one should have to endure.

I hung my towel up on the rack and walked into the kitchen to find Dark at the stove cooking the breakfast that I had smelt earlier. I walked over to the table and picked up a piece of bacon and toast and began to eat. I was hungry from the flight here last night and hadn't eaten anything since their stop halfway to the city.

"Sleep well?" Dark asked me.

"Like a rock," I replied.

"You know," Dark said, "having the ability to know the future doesn't give you the power to change it. Sometimes all it allows you to do is prepare for what is coming."

"Huh?" I replied. I know, not the most intelligent response, but my brain was still half asleep.

"I overheard your conversation," Dark said, "With Skye was it? Who is she?"

"Yes," I replied, "She's my life partner."

The Angelan used the term life partner instead of wife or husband, considering that the Altered weren't given any privileges in that area, but mainly because it referred to the bird nature of the Angelan. With birds, when they choose a partner, it's for life, without the huge unnecessary weddings. If someone is willing to love another, there is no need to perform a fancy ceremony. You know that you love each other; people only have weddings to make their love legal in the eyes of the government, or they are insecure about their love and have to confirm it is really there.

"I couldn't bring her with me," I continued, "I don't know if she has immunity or not. She's at home taking care of our daughter. If I'm guessing correctly, she should at least have partial immunity to the virus."

"You have a daughter?" Dark asked me, "How old is she?"

"She's two months old," I replied. "Has her mother's eyes." 

"She'll be fine," Dark replied, sensing the sadness in my voice, "Both of them will be."

"I don't mean to sound negative," I replied, "but I hope so, I really hope so."

We both sat in silence as we ate. A moment later Flame walked in Her hair was damp from the shower and she had her wings slightly open as well to let them dry.

"You wouldn't happen to have a hair dryer would you?" She asked. 

Both Dark and I burst out laughing.

"What?" She asked.

"In case you haven't noticed," Dark replied, trying to keep a straight face, "This is a bachelor pad; I doubt you'd find a hair dryer anywhere in here. I thought you'd be able to tell from the state of our hair."

**Chapter 24 **

I sat in a tree, just outside the perimeter of the blank spot that was on my map, although it wasn't so blank in real life. I had left Dark's apartment half an hour after I had finished breakfast and had half flown, half walked through the forest, passing the quarantine borders and headed to the area that was blank on the map. 

When I had arrived at the edge of the spot on the map I had climbed the tallest tree in the area and was sitting there now, staring at the laboratory / base, whatever it was. I was unsure because I could see whitecoats scurrying around looking busy and professional. Crates were stacked outside the buildings. Some of them were normal packing crates, but my blood ran cold when I saw the dog crates stacked against one building. They were similar to the ones I had been kept in back at Eden, my birth place, the place where the second generation were first discovered.

But the thing that confused me was the military presence around the base. What was the military doing here? I couldn't understand that. Weren't they trying to cure the disease? Then why were they helping the whitecoats? Were they making the cure here? I decided to take a look and see what was going on. I slowly crept out of the tree and over to the wired fence surrounding the place. I had found a section of the fence that was temporarily unguarded for a window of about three minutes. No guards were around the area and the cameras were all turned away from the fence. I jumped over the fence, crept over to the closest building and flattened myself behind the crates as the guard came around the corner for his regular sweep of the area. 

Once he was gone I crept around the building and took a look around, trying to find a way into the building. The place was a flurry of activity; I doubt anyone would have noticed an intruder except for the guards around the fence. The rest of the place was in chaos. People were frantically scurrying around from one building to another carrying their clipboards and pens. I was about to move when a group of soldiers approached the helicopter pad in the centre of the grounds. A few minutes later I could hear the beat of helicopter blades on the air and the guards stood to attention. The helicopter flew in from the north and landed on the pad. A well-decorated soldier rushed up to the door and opened it. I had to see what was going on, but it was nearly impossible with the clothing I was wearing.

A guard got a bit too curious about what was going on in the main yard and came close to my hiding spot. Luck seemed to be on my side; his uniform looked to be about my size and I could probably pass as him, if no-one noticed my eyes and I never showed my full face. I quickly grabbed him while people were preoccupied and knocked him out with an elbow to the forehead. I stashed him in a nearby crate, quickly put on the uniform and equipped myself with the guard's rifle.

I stepped out from the crates and into the guard's previous position just as the camera came around. I continued walking forward so that I could get closer to the entrance of the main building. I was about to enter when a face caught my attention in the helicopter. I would recognize him anywhere. His face was on the television when our kind was first found. He was the one who wanted us all locked up and kept under control. Then I began to put the pieces together. This place was where the virus was created; where whitecoats were running all over the place with protection from the military. They weren't trying to find a cure; it was the military that made the virus, to control our population and now that they realized that it could become a threat, they were trying to find a cure. It was his face that gave me the final clue. It was him… Secretary of Defense John Marsten...

**Chapter 25**

I could barely keep control of my anger at what this idiot could do. He was the one who had authorized all this. He was the one who had put Skye's and Max's lives at risk. I so wanted to punch the arrogant politician's face in for what he had done. Right now he was standing across the field from me with a professional look on his face. He didn't realize that he had set in motion events that would lead to the collapse of all civilization as we know it.

I pushed my anger aside and focused on getting inside the building unnoticed. I found the ID card that I had snagged, swiped it through the reader and pushed open the door. I walked down the bland white hallway until I reached an elevator and pressed the call button. I walked inside and traveled down to the living quarters. I knew that to get into the labs I would require a whitecoat's ID, which meant another change in clothing. How great.

The elevator reached the living quarters and I walked out of the cart, no-one paying any attention to me; I was just another guard coming off shift. I walked down the corridor looking in rooms for a suitable ID card that I could swipe for myself. About halfway down the hallway there was an open door and a lab coat had been discarded on the floor. I picked it up and placed it on the door to the room, swiping the ID as I did so. I continued down the corridor and came to the locker room. I quickly changed out of the soldier uniform and into the all-whites of those that worked in the labs. I looked at the ID and cursed myself. I was not going to be able to pass as a female lab technician. I walked back out into the hallway and looked around the area. Spotting nothing easy to swipe, I resorted to drastic measures. I walked up to one of the closed doors and checked it, but unfortunately it was locked. Thank god, Falcon had taught me how to pick locks, although I had to confiscate his lock-pick pack when I caught him trying to pick the lock on our front door after sneaking out late at night.

I pulled that pack out of my pocket under the whites I was wearing and pulled out two slim tools to work on the lock with. After a moment I was able to pop the lock open and I entered the room. It was plain and barren as if no-one was living in there, but there was. I could hear them breathing in their sleep. I looked around the room until I saw the coat up on the wall hook. I slipped over quietly and picked it off the shirt, making sure I could at least pass as this person. Thankfully the answer was yes.

The rest of the infiltration was a piece of cake. I made it into the lab without any problems. Most of the whitecoats were too busy preparing for the arrival of the Secretary of Defense to notice me; I was just another work mate in a hurry to be ready. I hurried past workstations; some clean, freshly tidied, others were in the works of being cleaned and the last lots were just war zones, total anarchy. I hurried past them until I reached another elevator that led deeper into the facility. I swiped the card and entered the elevator, selecting the floor that had 'mainframe' written above it. I wanted some answers and I was darn well going to get them.

The door opened and I walked out into a white sterile room that was used to remove any static electricity that could damage the computer mainframe. After it was complete the door on the other end of the room opened onto a large spire in the centre of a circular room. A catwalk was extended to the main computer access point. I walked along it and reached the terminal, quickly accessing the computer and looked through the information stored on the mainframe. The data was near endless and I couldn't believe such a computer system existed. I had set up computer systems in two separate places that were capable of sorting through information, but not even they could hold all of this. So I decided to look only for the files I needed…


	6. Chapter 26 to 30

**Chapter 26 **

After about five minutes of searching I had come across information from the previous owners of this place, who just happened to be whitecoats working on some experiment I couldn't gain access to, so I took the file for later attempts at hacking. The search for information on the funding for this place was taking ages. I had to find it soon, before someone realized I was here.

I was searching for the funding within the past few weeks, to see where it was coming from, although, I had a good idea where. The Secretary's presence here was disturbing. If The Information I had so far was correct, this base was responsible for the creation and outbreak of the virus, and now, to stop it and to cover their 'mistake' they are trying to find a cure for it.

There. I had almost flashed past the file, but something told me to stop. I was looking at a string of files, all of them given a date for which the funding was received. I opened the most recent one, dated at the beginning of March. I opened it and ran through the list of payments, most were irrelevant and didn't mean anything to me, but what caught my attention was the brief absence of payments around the time of the Installations collapse, then more funding beginning again around the time four weeks before the outbreak of the virus. Didn't the file Shadow had say the longest person infected in the tests was three weeks? Here was the proof I needed.

I copied the files over onto the data stick and logged off the mainframe. I had already spent too much time in here, more than I wanted to. The security would be twice what it was; now that the Secretary was in the compound. I moved back into the elevator and back into the chaotic work area of the new whitecoats running the facility. The chaos was dying down and people were preparing for the arrival of the Secretary. I had to hurry. I walked past the whitecoats and out the door, people only giving me a brief look before returning to their work. I raced back to the changing room and switched back into the soldier uniform I had borrowed. I stepped out into the corridor and walked right into the Secretary and his personal Guard.

**Chapter 27**

_Great,_ I thought, _just what I needed._

The soldier at the front of the group stopped and looked at me. I stood straight and threw him a salute, showing he was of higher rank than me, which he was. He returned the salute and was about to turn away when he saw my ID tag. I saw the tense of his muscles as he reached for the gun holster on his hip.

_Darn,_ I thought, _I knew I could pass as this guy if no-one looked closely, but this guy got a good look. He's seen the difference._

I sensed rather than saw the other guards doing the same when they saw their captain move, shoving the Secretary into the middle of the group to protect him from me. I reacted fast—grabbing the first soldier, the lead one, and shoving him into the group, throwing them off balance—and raced down the hall, tearing the uniform off to reveal my civilian clothes and my Wings. I heard the crackle of radios and as the soldiers reported the intruder, I heard their statement.

"We have a possible carrier Altered on the Premises," the lead soldier reported, "Seal off all exits, use tranquilizer guns only. We want him alive."

Great, they want me alive, I want me alive. I don't fancy being killed in a place like this. I raced along the corridor, charging down anyone who stood or rushed in my way, until I reached the exit. Guess what? It was blocked by about three to five soldiers, all with—yep you guessed it—tranquilizer guns. I dodged into a nearby open door to find myself in an elevator. I pushed the door close button and watched as the door closed, right before the guards reached them. I hurriedly pressed a button to get away from them. Yeah I know I'm going deeper underground, but what other way can I go? The exits are blocked off. Then it hit me, underground they would have air vents, and therefore my escape route. I began to fit my escape together in my head and had the formation of a plan.

The elevator came to a halt and I rolled to the side, expecting a volley of tranqs to hit the inside of the elevator, but was sadly disappointed. I crept out of the elevator and into a large storage area. Large crates were lined along the walls and shelves of the room, reaching up to the roof of the large room, probably about five meters in the air. I walked up to one and read the label on the box and nearly fell over from shock. Here, right in front of me, were the boxes of suppressant that were going to be used. I could destroy them right now; I was about to when I remembered what Dark had said. 

Having the ability to know the future, I recollected, doesn't give you the power to change it. Sometimes all it allows you to do is prepare for what is coming.

I didn't know what would happen if I would change the future. It could get better, or it could get worse. I didn't know and I didn't want to find out, as much as it tempted me to at least try and stop what I saw from happening. I looked around and heard the clatter of elevator doors from the other side of the room.

_Darn,_ I thought, _I should have seen that._

It was a cargo lift, used to transport the crates from down here to the surface. Now being used to transport soldiers down to flush me out, and as you guessed it, there was no other way out, except the air vent which was over by the cargo elevator. I was trapped. I stood in the centre of the room, making sure I had a clear view around me to spot any attackers that may come at me. A large crack emitted from somewhere in the room and hands grabbed me, then the room began to dissolve into bright colors until I reappeared outside in the sunlight with trees around me. I looked down at the person who had grabbed me and looked Falcon in the face…

_**Chapter 28**_

"Hey Blaze," Falcon said, "Looks like I just saved your butt." 

Falcon shut up as soon as he saw my face change from shock through thankfulness to rage. I was furious he had shown up. Sure, he helped me out of a tight spot, but he didn't realize what the heck he had just done.

"You idiot!" I shouted, "Falcon, do you realize what you just did? You've just risked yourself to infection and disobeyed me in coming here! Do you realize that if you are infected, you cannot go back home! I cannot risk any more of our family getting infected." 

"Do you seriously expect me to come here and get infected?!" Falcon shouted back at me, "You should be thankful that I was here. Otherwise you would have had a load of trouble on your hands! I saw who that was, the person in the helicopter, it was Secretary John Marsten! This thing is bigger than all of us Blaze. I can't sit around home waiting for things to happen. I have to protect my brother!"

Brother?! What was Falcon talking about? We had all seen each others files and there was no mention in Falcon's file about a brother. So what was he talking about? I had no clue.

"Brother?" I asked quietly, "Falcon, you have a brother? How did you find out?"

"Oh, now you're interested!" Falcon said angrily, "Now you want to know, after you've finished shouting at me. The file you found, the file on me was only part of the full file. I found more. There was more to my file. According to the rest of the file, I've had my teleportation ability since birth. Whenever I sensed I was in danger, I teleported out of harm's way, that's what the file said. It also said that when I teleport, my mind memorizes what's being teleported so once I reach my destination, the objects are reconstructed. The file said that due to the fact that every atom in my body gets separated during teleportation, no virus or disease can survive the teleportation process. That's why I knew it was safe to come here for me. But I cannot allow my family to be destroyed by this virus. I know now what you have felt since you found out about all this, Blaze. But I have to do this, not only for my family, but for my brother as well."

"Falcon," I replied, "I'm sorry I shouted. But now you understand why I didn't want anything to happen to you? I consider you my little bro." 

I was silent for a moment, letting that get through to Falcon and then I spoke.

"Falcon," I asked him, "Who is your brother?"

"It's Drake," Falcon replied, "My brother is Drake…"

**Chapter 29**

"He's been brooding on it since a little while after you left," said Rei as she stepped out of the trees. "Man, Blaze. When you go ballistic, you definitely go ballistic. And before you go off your tree at me, I'm immune as well. I still don't know what my power is, but I'm one of the rare ones that have a natural immunity towards the virus not based on my powers."

"Unless it is your mysterious powers that give you immunity," Nathan replied, "But you don't know it yet."

"True," Rei replied, "That's true. We better get going before they decide to search the area for us."

"I'll take you back to the apartment I've been hanging out in for the past two days," I replied. "We can lay low there for a while." 

"I could teleport us there if I had a mental picture of the place," Falcon said, "But since I've never been there..."

"I can give you an image," I replied. "Close your eyes; I'll transfer it by telepathy. It's something I've been working on." 

Falcon closed his eyes and I placed my hands on either side of his head, focusing on transferring the mental image to his mind. A moment later he opened his eyes.

"I've got the place," Falcon said. "It's nice, for an apartment." 

He grabbed my arm and then grabbed Rei's arm in his other hand. The world began to blur and warped before it came back into focus and we were standing in Dark's apartment with both Dark and Flame looking surprised at our sudden appearance.

"Afternoon," I replied. "Don't happen to have any leftovers from lunch, do you? I'm starving. Oh, Dark, allow me to introduce you to Falcon, another member of my family, and Rei, she's the daughter of the whitecoat that gave his life to protecting us to the end."

"Umm," Dark replied confused, "Nice to meet you Falcon and Rei, I'm Dark, Shadow's brother. Blaze, just how did you suddenly appear in the middle of my living room with two more people than when you left?"

"Oh," I replied, "Did I forget to mention, Falcon is a teleport. He's also immune to the virus because of it. Rei is also immune, although I don't know what her power is."

"So what did you find out there?" Flame asked, "Was there anything that you could use to prove what's been going on?"

"I saw Secretary of Defense John Marsten at the base," I replied, registering shock on Flame and Dark's faces. "I also found financial records that show the change in funding from when the place was shut down to when it was opened again four weeks before the outbreak. It said in the file Shadow had that the longest a test subject had lasted while infected was three weeks. Shadow caused the outbreak without meaning to, but he found this girl, the one that was infected, that's how he contracted the virus. She can be related to this place, where the outbreak started with her. If I can find out where the funding is coming from, I can find the person responsible for this entire mess. And I have my suspicions it might very well be the Government itself."

**Chapter 30 **

**_Journal Entry: 20th March 2021 : _**_  
__I'm having a hard time keeping what I'm writing civilized. The anger I am feeling towards a government that swore to protect us, who swore to protect those who had never lived in the outside world. I can't believe how much they have lied to us. All along they were monitoring us, making sure our population never grew too big, and always keeping us under control. Although I suppose I saw the controlling part, but as long as I got to live a normal life, I didn't really care. ___

_But all along they were afraid of us, not sure what our purpose was. They weren't sure whether we were just innocents caught in the middle, or if we were the replacement to humanity. Most of my anger is at the fact that I have traced the funding, all the way up the chain, to the president of the United States. The man we all placed our trust in, was the one who wanted to kill off a few thousand of us, just to keep us under control. I can't take this any more, I need to vent my anger before I do something I will regret. ___

_I have the information revealing what was going on; to show the world to what lengths the government is willing to go to protect themselves. But in revealing all this to the world, I could tear apart the country, probably starting a civil war within America. God it is all so confusing and I don't know what to do._

I stopped writing in my journal because my anger and confusion had started to make the edges of the pages smoke. My anger was majorly out of control. I had been betrayed by people I believed could help the Altered. I held myself partly responsible for everything that had happened since the destruction of The Installation, but what could we do? Just sit around in hiding for the rest of our lives, always running from those that made us? Just let the whitecoats continue creating more experiments, letting those kids experience what I had? I couldn't let that happen, they deserved some freedom.

I had stepped out onto the balcony to cool off. The room had become warm and the first signs of me changing into the fiery spirit I had changed into what seemed like years ago, began to appear. I focused all my anger, frustration and confusion into a large ball of fire and launched it off the balcony and into the air, letting it explode and the small embers falling harmlessly to the ground below, already dying on the wind. Hopefully some Altered kid saw that somewhere and it made him happy.


	7. Chapter 31 to 35

**Chapter 31 **

The next morning I was feeling more myself and had decided that there was only one thing to do. I was going to go to Washington and speak with the Secretary, perhaps the president. Now that may sound like someone just said I'm going to defy the laws of gravity and float, but technically I could meet the president. All I had to do was blackmail a little and they would be agreeing to see me, otherwise they would be sending every known FBI, CIA and NSA agent after me to keep me quiet, but that was a risk I was willing to take. I already sent copies of the files off last night before I went to sleep. All I had to do now was wait for a reply, one way or another.

I walked into the kitchen to find Falcon already up and eating something. That was a surprise; normally he had to have a bomb placed under him to get him out of bed. I grabbed myself a piece of toast and some jam and got myself a quick breakfast and sat down at the table.

"You're up early," I commented. "Can't stay asleep?"

"You try getting to sleep with two girls in the room next door to you," Falcon replied. "I'd like to see you trying to get to sleep while they stay up all night talking about girly things." 

"Like what?" I asked, hoping it wasn't the wrong question to be asking.

"Well," Falcon said, "At first it was about the stuff you said last night, about the government betraying us all. I could of sworn I heard a few pillows being murdered. Then I think it was Rei changing the subject."

Falcon stopped there, turning a little red in the face. I guessed that the other conversation they had was something he didn't want to repeat to anyone. Now it had me intrigued, but did I really have to know? 

"I'm going to leave it there," I said, "I don't really want to know."

"So what did you do with the information you found?" Falcon asked. "I mean we have to be careful. If the world found out about this, there will be chaos."

"I know, Falcon," I replied, "I know. I sent a copy to the president. I wanted to talk to him in person. I used a relay so they couldn't find where it was sent from. Some poor person is most likely getting raided by the NSA or the CIA or something. If they want to talk to me, they have to use the anonymous e-mail service I told them to send a reply to."

We both smiled into our breakfasts as I finished saying that. We could just imagine the agent being shouted at for making a blunder and arresting a civilian. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and shouting…

**Chapter 32**

Dark came out of his room at the knocking, Falcon and I already on the move to see who it was. I peered out of the eye hole and was surprised to see military soldiers in the corridor searching the apartments for something.

_Crud,_ I thought, _they must have realized that to get the information someone would have to have been in the infected area._

"It's the military," I replied, "They must be searching for whoever got the information from the base. They don't know who it is, but they must have figured it out that the person who stole the information is in the quarantine area."

"Wow," Dark replied, "That was fast. Normally it takes them a bit longer to look at the security footage before finding out who leads the riots we have every now and then around the city."

"Open up in the name of the US military," A soldier shouted through the door. "We will break down the door if we have to."

Falcon and I stayed on either side of Dark as he reached up and opened the door to let the soldiers in. The commanding officer gestured to them to sweep the apartment while he walked in through the door and looked at us. Rei and Flame were shoved into the living room roughly, but surprisingly they were already dressed.

"Line up," The commanding soldier said, "Stand at attention. You are subjected to photo identification."

_Double crud,_ I thought, _the cameras might have gotten a photo of me. I can't believe I forgot about them during my escape. Let's just hope they didn't bring…_

Yep they bought it, a new, state of the art PID, or Photo Identification Device. It was held up in front of the face and a photo was taken, which is then sent back to a receiver that cross references it with the original suspect, or suspects they are searching for. Then I remembered Falcon. He was only there for a few seconds, but what if they got a photo of him? Things were just getting worse. The soldier approached me and held up the PID. A laser scan created a digital photo of my face and sent it off to be matched.

Seconds ticked by slowly as we waited for a response to the facial scan. I saw the commanding soldier speak in hushed tones with another soldier, the PID receiving the results. I already knew what it said. 

"Hold your hands out in front of you," The soldier ordered, "You are all to be placed under military arrest for conspiring to bring about the downfall of the American Government."

Wow, they had really outdone themselves this time. I think we might have a problem, _might_ being the keyword.

**Chapter 33**

The soldiers escorted us out of the apartment building, handcuffed hands behind our backs, towards an army truck waiting outside. The entire time they held their MP9s trained on our backs so that if we tried anything funny, they could shoot us. MP9s were newer and more advanced versions to the MP5s they used back near the turn of the millennium. Back when my mother was killed.

They shoved us into the back of the truck, one of the soldiers sitting in the back, his gun trained on us; the other two went to the front of the truck. Moments later we heard the engine start and the truck began to move. I sat at the back, or should I say front of the truck, up against the wall so I could see out of the truck. Flame and Rei sat on either side of the truck, facing each other. Dark and Falcon sat down on either side of me.

"I think we might have a problem," Dark whispered to me, keeping his mouth motionless, a skill we had all picked up, "they might have gotten a photo of you."

"You think?" I whispered back, "That might be the reason why we're in this predicament in the first place. They'll want to question us about what we know, about what I found."

"Well I guess the president got your e-mail," Dark replied, "and the CIA figured you were in the quarantine area. All they had to do was search for the culprit and arrest him or her and anyone associated with that person. It looks like you got us all captured." 

"Yeah," I replied regrettably, "That wasn't part of the plan. If I play my cards right, they'll get the big guns in. If that happens I'll be able to play my game and get a meeting with our so called Secretary of Defense. Play ignorant, they'll think you're innocent bystanders." 

The last part about my plan to play my game, and that they need to play ignorant, I relayed to the girls using telepathy, letting them know so they didn't blow our plan out of the water.

We sat the rest of the way in silence. The Soldier guarding us kept a close eye on our movements, but he didn't bother coming close enough to eavesdrop on our conversations, although we talked about what was going on, pretending we didn't know. Dark came up with a really funny excuse for why my face might have been on video. He said that I could tell them I was part of an experiment where there was a high risk of death, so they stored my DNA for cloning later. At one stage they thought I was dead and began to grow a copy of me, but I came back. The copy must still be running around. I cracked a smile at that one. 

We slowed to a stop and I heard the commotion of guards checking security papers and one of them came around the back to check and make sure we weren't smuggling bombs in, although we didn't really need bombs around when I was in the house. After about five minutes passed, we were granted clearance and passed through the gates of the base and were driven quickly along a dirt path until we stopped outside a dark, metallic building that looked like a maximum security prison. I recognized these from my time at both Eden and The Academy. This was where the uncooperative experiments were taken.

The two guards from the front turned off the engine and approached the back of the truck. They climbed on board and hauled all of us to our feet and began to roughly escort us into the building. I could tell the others were familiar with the purpose of the building by the looks on their faces. We entered the building and were escorted down into the interrogation rooms. We were separated from each other and led into different rooms.

_Falcon,_ I thought briefly, _get the others out of here when you can. Forget me. I'll find my own way out._

_How?_ He asked me.

_Teleport out,_ I thought back to him. _You can get out of these handcuffs, can't you? Then help the others escape._

Just before the door closed I saw Falcon nod to show he understood me. Then I was roughly thrown down onto a chair sitting behind a desk. One guard stood in the room, gun trained on me at all times. I knew there would be at least one other guard with a gun aimed at me behind the one way glass that typically lined the wall. What was it with questioning or interrogation rooms that they had to have one way glass walls? And for the matter, why do I happen to be on the wrong side of the laws when I happen to see one of these rooms?

**_Chapter 34_**

Drake sat in the living room watching the TV. He had been annoyed that Falcon had disobeyed Blaze's orders and gone. But Drake couldn't leave Skye, Terra and Max here alone. Blaze had given him the duty of looking after them, and he would. Drake would never admit it, but he looked up to Blaze and the way he was almost always in control of a situation. On the news about two days ago, a reporter had screened a news bulletin about outbreaks of the Virus outside the Quarantine zone. They said officials were still in the dark about how that happened, but scientists were studying the virus to see if they could explain why.

Drake's attention caught the TV as a reporter on the news moved over to her partner who was reporting live from the city that was under Quarantine. She was reporting that the Military had so far found no leaks in their perimeter where people could escape, but had upped their patrols to make sure that there weren't any mistakes. She then went on to mention the distribution of the suppressant that the military now had ready for those infected. Drake watched as the people lined up to be injected with the shot.

Skye had told him what Blaze had seen. He could only look on in pity for the people who weren't saving their lives but throwing them away on the drug. So far everything Blaze had foreseen had come true. Drake had seen the people in his neighborhood getting sick about a day after the report. The Virus was spreading rapidly, faster than Blaze seemed aware of.

Max began crying again. She seemed to be doing it more recently, as if missing her father. It was only after she had been crying for five minutes that Drake began to realize something was wrong. Normally Skye was quick to respond to her daughter's needs. He raced up the stairs to Max's room and picked her up out of the crib to stop her crying. As he picked her up, she felt warmer than normal and Drake placed a hand against her forehead and was surprised to see she was burning up. He raced into Skye's room and saw Skye lying asleep on the bed, covered in cold sweat. Drake gently shook her awake.

"Are you feeling ok?" He asked, concerned. Any sign of sickness had him on edge. For all he knew it could be the virus that was striking down his family.

"I'm fine," Skye replied, "Just feeling a little under the weather. What's the point in having healing powers when you can't heal a common bug like this?"

Drake placed his hand on Skye's forehead and found that Skye had a temperature as well, close to the one Max was experiencing. This was not good.

"Skye," Drake said, "Max is burning up, and so are you. This isn't a normal bug that goes around. I think you might have been infected. I think Max is infected."

"No," Skye said, fiercely. Drake picked up the despair in her voice, "She can't be infected."

Skye held Max close and lay back on the bed. Drake left the room and walked downstairs and picked up the phone. He dialed Blaze's cell phone, but got no response, which was unusual for Blaze unless he was out on a mission or had been captured. If he was on a mission, one of the others should have picked up, so that meant they had been caught. Drake was torn between decisions. Got out there and find Blaze, or look after Skye and Max. Then the sudden impact hit him. What if he had been infected?

Alone in an empty apartment, a cell phone lay on a bedside table, a light flashing to indicate a message had been recorded. By the time anyone sees it, if they do, it could be too late...

**Chapter 35**

I sat on the chair with the harsh light glaring down at me. I should be used to making enemies in the government, yet here I was again, sitting in another interrogation chamber and I could do nothing but sit around and wait for them to analyze me before sending in an 'expert' to 'question' me. Normally they analyzed me wrong and the first guy would get nothing out of me. I'm good at doing that. Most profilers, criminal or not, couldn't pick up anything about me from watching me, they would have to talk to me first. But something told me that these people were serious and if I didn't talk, more unpleasant things awaited me. I hope the others would be fine. As long as they plead ignorant, except for Falcon, who would be in trouble as well. Things could not be any worse, could they?

The door opened and in walked a man dressed in a black suit, black tie and white shirt on underneath the suit. He looked like one of those Men in black from all the conspiracy theories people dredge up. They need more original clothing if they want to impress anyone.

"Mr. Corway," The man said, "My name is agent Jackson. Do you know why you are here?"

"Well let me see," I replied, pretending to think it through, "It wouldn't happen to be that I blew up an abandoned military base used for illegal experimentation, nor is it the death of a DR. Reilly; perhaps it might be about how I was able to breach Quarantine and get in the city in the first place. Oh wait, now I remember, it wouldn't happen to be that information I acquired from your database that acknowledges that you are the ones who authorized the murder of hundreds of my kind, and thousands more of the Altered. That about sums the past year or two of my life in possible illegal activities. I'm sure it's in there somewhere."

The agent looked a bit uncomfortable at the list of things I had told him, but continued as if it didn't show on his face or in the way he held his body.

"You infiltrated and extracted confidential information that can be used to bring about the downfall of the American Government," Jackson said. "You can get the death penalty and be killed by firing squad. You'll be classed as either a traitor or a Terrorist." 

"Like I care," I replied casually, annoying the heck out of Jackson. "I cannot sit back and watch my kind as they are ravaged by this disease that your president, your kind let loose on all the Altered. I'm doing what I can to let them know what is going on. You are committing mass genocide and you don't give a stuff. Well I won't be answering any of your questions for you."

"Oh I think you will be," Jackson said, slightly miffed at my little speech, "If not now, then you will be later. I think anyone would talk. I want to know what information you stole, there was more than you are letting on with. I know you stole another file. I want to know which one."

Oh, that file. I forgot I even borrowed it. I didn't have time to ponder it as the guard in the room nudged me to stand up with a gun barrel at my back. I stood up, not wanting a bullet in my back or the butt of the gun to crack me across the head. I didn't have to worry about that as Jackson injected a syringe into my neck and the world swam. I saw the look of disgust in his face, I could tell he didn't like our kind, none of them, then darkness filled my vision, but not before I saw a guard move to pick me up, his partner coming into the room to help move me.


	8. Chapter 36 to 40

**Chapter 36**

I awoke to nothing. Everything was black, was darkness. There was nothing there. Not even a single hint at light. I tried to move, only to find I couldn't. I tried to feel, but nothing was there. I strained to hear anything, but all was deathly quiet. I couldn't smell, taste or feel anything. I couldn't sense anything at all, it was like I had no body. Was I dead? Did Jackson inject me with some sort of lethal poison? I doubt it, he still wanted something from me.

"This looks familiar," A voice said beside me, making me jump, although I couldn't feel anything. "I believe this happened to me sometime in my life. Not sure when though, it's hard to tell when you're dead."

"Hey Max," I said, speaking to my dead mother, "How are things on your side? Nothing much here. You said this looks familiar, how so?"

"I remember sometime in my life," Max replied, "of being held in a tank of some sort. They called it a sensory deprivation tank. You can't use any of your senses. They forgot about your sixth sense in this case. You have a message by the way, it's sitting on your cell phone back at the apartment."

"Really?" I asked, "Who from and what's it about?"

"It's from Drake," Max replied, "Don't know what it's about, sorry. Ah, now I remember, I was kept in one of these things while some clone of me ran around trying to be me. She failed miserably. Can you believe she offered to cook them breakfast? I had never cooked properly in my life."

We both laughed at that. It was interesting to hear about the real events of her life. I spent the remainder of my time in the tank listening to what had happened to her. She told me of all that had happened since her escape, the betrayal of Jeb and about Ari's fascination with trying to make her like him. She went on to explain about the little voice she used to have in her head, about her faster-than-light travel. About how she was meant to save the world and about the fight between Max and her clone.

She explained why they were made to fight. How she had won, but left the clone alive. How there was an explosion and Max was unsure if her clone had survived. After we had talked, she returned to where she now existed, in the afterlife. I don't know what happens to us when we die, or where we go. Even if there is a place in heaven for us. But after Max went back I was left in silence until the door was opened on me and blinding light flooded my face. I discovered that I was suspended in some sort of liquid that prevented me from feeling my limbs until I was removed from it.

I had to close my eyes from the light as it pierced them like red hot pokers. The small breeze in the room was torture to my skin, as if someone had doused me in gasoline and lit it on fire. I could hear all too well and every sound sent shards of pain into my head. Every touch was like a white hot brand, every light was a piercing dagger. My mouth was dry, and my sense of smell was too sensitive. I refused, however, to shout out in pain. I refused to give them the satisfaction. Eventually my senses returned to normal and I saw I had been moved back into the interrogation room. They had placed me on the chair and I was once again sitting across from Agent Jackson. 

_Blaze,_ I heard Falcon's thoughts in my head, _You there?_

_Yeah I'm here,_ I replied, _You ready? Can you do it?_

_Yeah,_ Falcon replied, _Just be ready._

_Count to ten,_ I replied, _then do it._

"You ready to talk now, Mr. Corway?" Jackson asked me. I slowly counted the seconds in my head, "Are you willing to give me the information I want?"

"No," I replied, "I won't be giving you the information you want. I'll be seeing you around though, Mr. Jackson. Got to go for now." 

There was a loud crack in the room as Falcon appeared, grabbed me, and then we both disappeared. Just before we went I saw the look of pure hatred and disgust Jackson gave us, and I waved, making him go even redder in the face from his anger. Then we were gone, before the guards could even react.

**Chapter 37**

We appeared in the woods just outside the military base. Rei, Flame and Dark were there waiting for me and Falcon. It appeared they had been roughed up a little bit, but they hadn't been physically hit. We had gotten off light, but once again we were on the run, only this time from the military rather than the whitecoats and their Erasers. Well, at least we were used to living life like this.

"We need to return to the apartment," I said, "grab some food, clothing and other supplies. We can't stay there; the military will most likely find us. Grab what you need. Falcon can teleport us to safety."

Everyone nodded to show they understood. We all grabbed onto each other as Falcon teleported us away from the military base and back to the apartment. Once we were sure we were fully there, we moved off to our own separate rooms to pack our gear. I went into the room Dark gave me and started packing my clothes that were strewn all over the place. I hadn't had time to keep it clean, what with everything going on and all. I grabbed my toothbrush from the bathroom and was about to walk out into the kitchen and then remembered my cellphone. I grabbed it off the counter and almost put it in my pocket before I realized a light was flashing on it. I flicked it open and found I had missed a call and there was a message waiting for me.

I activated the message and let it play while I gathered food and drink from the kitchen. The message was from Drake, asking where I was, that I needed to come home as soon as I got this message. He said he was sorry about Falcon and Rei and that he hadn't meant to let them escape. I smiled at that, and then stopped smiling as he continued with the message. He sounded worried and that was a rare occurrence. When he told me Max and Skye were unwell, I stopped breathing. He said something about the Virus now being airborne, that it was starting to show up over the past two days all over the country. Then he told me the shocker. That it was the Virus Skye and Max had. I stood there stunned, not wanting to believe it. The cellphone dropped out of my hand and hit the floor. I slid to my knees and started to cry.

"Dang it!" I shouted, "I should have seen this coming. I should have protected her."

The others came rushing out when they heard me shout out. They looked at me, not sure what was going on. Flame moved over to the phone, but I stopped her, not wanting her to hear the message. I had managed to calm myself down, but only just.

"Drake left a message," I said after a while. "Max and Skye are infected. He doesn't know how long they have. God dang it," I lashed out and my fist struck the fridge door, leaving a dent, "I will not let them die. I will not let it take them away."

"Don't mean to put a dampener on anything," Dark said, "But how are you going to help them? I mean the humans, who created the virus, don't have a cure."

"I'll do anything I can," I replied, "Anything… Falcon, take me home, then come back here, grab the gear and the others and get home as well."

Falcon didn't hesitate; he just grabbed me by the arm and we were off, the colors rushing around us until the familiar living room came into view. Drake was upstairs tending to Max and Skye when he heard us arrive and came rushing down the stairs. I approached him.

"How are they?" I asked straight away, worried about what condition they were in.

"At the moment resting," Drake said, "But I don't know how long they can last. Max is putting up quite a fight, it appears she may be half immune to the disease because of you, but she's only half. She still got infected but she seems to have a chance."

"And Skye?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Not so good," Drake replied, "She's burning up. I think she has about a day, maybe two at the most, if she can hold out. I'm sorry Blaze, but that's all we can do."

**Chapter 38**

I sat by Skye's bed, watching her sleep, dabbing her forehead with a wet cloth. I wondered why she got infected. She can heal people, shouldn't she be able to heal herself?

"It's her healing powers that made her able to be infected," Max said, showing up from the afterlife to talk to me again; "Her body relies on the healing power to keep itself healthy, so her immune system isn't strong. It could beat things like the cold and the flu, but super viruses? That's a definite no."

"But what can I do?" I asked her softly, so as not to disturb Max or Skye, "I can't heal. The humans don't have a cure; soon they will start being infected. Max, Skye only has about a day or two. I don't want to lose her, I can't lose her. The only people who know enough about us to find a cure are the whitecoats…"

My voice trailed off upon saying that. I never would have made a deal with a whitecoat. That was something I never wanted to do, yet it was those same whitecoats who might be able to save Skye. I said I would do anything to save them, I think this comes under anything, darn. Max must have known what I was thinking.

"Blaze," She said, "I know you love her and Max, I know you would do anything to save them, but think about it. Are you willing to sell your soul, your life to the whitecoats to save Skye and Max? Do you think they would want that?"

"I can't let her die," I replied. "If she dies, a part of me will die with her. I couldn't bear the pain of losing her. I can't, Max. Have you ever felt that way before?"

Max looked away, but not before I saw the pain in her eyes. Even as a spirit, she looked pretty normal, except for the fact only I could see her. After a while she did reply.

"Yeah," she said, "I did. I loved him, still do. He jumped in the path of the first bullet to save me from the assassin, but once he died I lost all the fight in me. I didn't see the point in continuing. I got the rest of us killed, I could never forgive myself for that." 

"It was Fang," I replied, "Wasn't it?"

Max nodded, but didn't say anything. We just sat there in silence. Well _I_ sat in silence, she haunted me in silence. After a moment I moved up to Skye and took her hand, placing it against my cheek, feeling her racing pulse in her wrist under my hand. I knew then what I was going to do. The flock would kill me for it. I was insane for even thinking it, but as long as the flock killed me before the insanity set in I would be fine.

"I'll go alone," I replied at last. "I won't involve the others. No need to risk them."

"No, Blaze," Max replied, "I won't let you go. I'll stop you anyway I can."

"Then try," I replied, "but I won't give up until I've exhausted every option."

"You're just as stubborn as your father," Max replied, "He always insisted on protecting me, looking after me, even though I told him not to. Fine, if you have to, then go, try the institute underneath New York. That place hasn't been found yet. You might still have a chance."

"Thanks mom," I replied, then without a word of goodbye, I grabbed my backpack, still with everything in and flew out the bedroom window, adjusted my course and flew towards New York… and the Institute.

**_Chapter 39_**

I arrived in New York to utter chaos and, well, almost total anarchy. News of the virus spreading to the human population had people running for their lives in fear, looters breaking into the shops and stealing anything they could get their hands on, as if they could stock up on it, wait for things to blow over and then sell it off to get rich. Sorry guys, I'll be surprised if you do survive.

I stayed to the rooftops of the city, remaining out of the way of the self-destruction going on down below. The homeless were left alone, no-one wanting to go near them in case they might catch the disease from them. The news had sent people into a downward spiral of desperation, and the government was trying as hard as they could to keep things under control, but eventually they had to bring in martial law. I had already spent about ten hours here, searching for The Institute. I had watched things happen so fast they were almost a blur. The Martial law didn't sink in until the Soldiers began to shoot people out of fear for themselves, but they didn't realize it was already too late for them.

A riot had broken out on the street below me as I had searched the city, looking for a way to find The Institute. Max wasn't around to help and so I was searching for a needle in a haystack. Then I heard gunfire down on the street. I looked down to see some of the citizens had guns and were fighting back against the Military. The military reacted back the way they had been trained… to eliminate all hostiles. It was a blood bath down on the streets below. I had enough of watching it and leapt off the building and landed in the street. Gunfire rang around me and bullets whizzed cst so close/ could feel the heat from the rounds.

"Stop it!" I shouted to the crowd, "There is no point in killing each other if you want to keep humanity alive."

The gunfire started to drop away, but not fast enough. I didn't have the time to wait for them to listen to me. The military was probably lining up a sniper to shoot me now. I focused on all the guns, picturing them in my mind, and then pulled. My telekinesis kicked into effect and all the weapons, guns, grenades, knives and all sorts of homemade weapons flew through the air and landed in a pile between the two parties, in no-man's-land.

"Now listen up!" I shouted out to the silence that had now fallen. A reporter and her cameraman appeared from out of hiding and began to film what was going on. "Shooting each other and killing one another won't help you survive, it'll kill you quicker. None of us here are to blame for what is going on. We weren't the ones who started this by making the virus, or by creating the Altered. This began as a mass genocide of the Altered, authorized by our government."

I looked straight at the camera as I said that, hearing the shock settle into the crowd. Some people were skeptical, wanting proof that what I said was true. I'd give them the proof. I reached into my bag, which somehow I had managed to take with me, and found the documents I had from the beginning of all this, as well as the ones I had collected from the base.

"As stated in this document," I said, reading the document, "'I, the president of the United States of America, hereby give permission to the Secretary of Defense to authorize the funding and execution of the population control method proposed by the Secretary himself.' And the next document is the control method proposed by the Secretary himself. It explains that they had designed a virus to attack the Altered population and reduce its size. This Virus was meant to not raise suspicion and to appear as a natural plague on the Altered. It's now killing us. They were fools to think they could control it, and now because of them, we are destroying ourselves."

I turned to the camera and spoke one last time.

"Mr. President," I said, "If you are listening, you have destroyed this world with your carelessness, and already we have begun to pay for your actions. The Altered will survive. We have immunity to the disease, but only some of us. As for humanity, some may survive, others may not. Your chance for survival is slim, but still there." 

I spread my wings and leapt into the air, not sure if I had made things better or worse, but at least I had stopped them from killing themselves. It was a start; now all I had to do was find the institute. An image flashed through my mind of a subway tunnel, sewers and a grating leading down to a metal door. I let the images flow through me as the dead whispered to me, until I found the station I needed to go down. I followed the images in my head, finding the station and walking down, following the tunnels until I found the grate. I lifted it and entered the dank dark sewers, the stench hitting me and making me gag in disgust.

The tunnel led on and on, seeming like it would never end, but eventually it did… at a big grey steel door embedded in the wall. I pulled on the door and found it opened at my touch. I walked in and the door closed behind me. I walked up some stairs, moving quietly so I didn't make any noise. Soon I was out of the stairs and in a smallish chamber. I took a step forward and realized my mistake too late. I heard the door close behind me and I was trapped in the room… 

**_Chapter 40_**

A hum started up and small red beams shot out of the wall, connecting to the other wall. They began to move up and down the walls, scanning the room. I heard voices over the hum, through the one way glass window they had somewhere in this room.

"The scanners are picking up the figure as an avian human," A voice said, barely audible over the hum. "One of the avian experiments has managed to find the entrance."

"We can't open it," Another voice replied back, barely audible as well, "We can't risk ourselves to contamination. Do you want to die?"

The beams stopped moving and disappeared into the walls. Small sections of the wall moved and a gas began to fill the chamber. I took a deep breath before the gas reached me and held it, not wanting to breathe in the gas in case it was harmful to me. The gas hissed into the room, filling every square nanometer of the room. I was close to drawing breath again when the gas was filtered out of the room. When I was sure it was clean pure air that filled the room I let my breath out and began to breathe again as the door opened and four Erasers moved in and flanked the door. I know, Erasers now called themselves Werewolves, but they still considered those that worked for the whitecoats Erasers, mutts to the werewolf packs. A figure walked in through the door, wearing one of those full body haz-mat suits. They weren't risking anything. I looked into the faceplate of the suit and saw pale green eyes staring back at me. Their hair was tied back and kept under the hood of the suit and it was hard to tell whether they were a guy or a girl.

"Who are you?" The suited person said, a woman by the sound of her voice, "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same questions," I replied, "But I'm not here to fight or to argue. I came here to talk. So let me talk."

I looked at the Erasers and nodded my head in their direction. The woman must have figured it out because she waved a hand and the Erasers filed out until we were alone in the room. I couldn't hear anyone eavesdropping from the side room and assumed it was safe.

"I am known as Nathan Corway, or Blaze," I said, answering her question, "But your people originally called me Alpha. I was the firstborn of the Second Generation. Now who are you?"

"I am Dr. Samantha Reilly," She said, "Sister of the Dr. Jack Reilly, whom I know you have met. It's such a shame he gave away his life protecting your kind."

"I have a proposition for you," I replied, hating myself for even being here. "My life partner and daughter are sick with the super virus. I need a cure for them; you can help me because you created us. In exchange, I can give you a blood sample of my daughter Max, to study the third generation of our species. What do you say to that?" 

"It's not enough to have only a blood sample," Samantha replied. "I know you were the one who hacked into the database at Blue Moon, the base now overrun with Military. There was a file stored on their database I want. It was encrypted. I know you downloaded it. If you can crack the encryption, within twenty-four hours, and give me the translated file as well as the vial of blood, we have a deal. Agreed?"

I hesitated for a moment, then sighed. "Agreed," I said through gritted teeth, wishing I wasn't so weak as to make deals with whitecoats. But I didn't want to lose them. I couldn't lose them. I was doing this for them.


	9. Chapter 41 to Epilogue

**Chapter 41**

The Erasers had come back to escort me to one of The Institute's living quarters used by the staff there, and then left. But I wasn't fooled. The Erasers would be on guard at the door and there would be people watching me from a hidden camera somewhere in this room. In places like this, there were always cameras hidden somewhere. I placed my bag down on the bed and approached the computer they had in the room. If they had a computer in here, then that meant the camera was set to look at the screen, to monitor what was being done on the computer.

I glanced around the room and saw two things that could hide the camera while it watched the screen. A potted plant, the most obvious place to hide one, but it didn't, after checking it twice. The only other place was a picture on the wall, the camera hidden amongst the colors and images visible. I approached the picture and took it off the wall. Hidden behind it was the camera, hanging innocently from the wall. I tore it from the wall, ripping the wires and making sure it was dead. There might have been others, but I didn't have time. They gave me twenty-four hours to crack the file and get the vial of blood. The file I could crack, but in twenty-four hours? That would be pushing, especially if I needed to get the vial of Blood for both Max and Skye. They need both for the cure.

I started up the computer and loaded the file in. I took one look at the file's protection and began to doubt myself. It was more complicated than anything I had come across. I didn't even want to try and crack this file open. The only good news was, there were no traps set on the file and no password limit; meaning if I needed to, I could go through every combination of letters and numbers that exist until I found the right code, but that could take forever, well at least the rest of my mortal life. I needed a miracle, and wondered if God listened to our kind.

It was many hours later and a darn miracle that I actually found the code. I had run out of things that were possibly used by whitecoats and had gone onto anything to do with the experiments. Nothing I had tried at first had worked, and then I had typed in the word Maximum. I guess that was the code because the file opened and numbers and letters began to scroll across the monitor. Names and addresses appeared and disappeared, only to be replaced by more names and addresses. They were the names of every experiment and their families' addresses. I looked closer and realized that it also had the last known location of every experiment listed and whether they are alive or not. One caught my eye, Maximum Ride Mk II. There was a second Maximum Ride born? Her current location and state of health was unknown. They didn't know if she was alive or not.

There was a crack and I didn't need to look up to know it was Falcon who had teleported to me, although I was surprised he was able to teleport into a room that was beneath the ground.

"Why?" He asked me, pain and hurt in his voice. "Why did you leave? Skye and Max are sick and you leave us?"

"You don't even know where I am, Falcon," I replied, "And you don't even know why I am here. So spare me a lecture. I am here because I care about them, more than my own safety. If they died, I'd go with them."

"Blaze," Falcon replied, "Blaze, where are we? What aren't you telling me?"

"Go home, Falcon," I replied, "Go home now. Take care of Terra. I know you care for her. Take care of your brother and my sister. You don't need to know the answers to those questions."

"Blaze…" Falcon replied, "Just answer. Where are we? What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm saving their lives, Falcon." I replied, "Any way I can. As for where am I? Welcome to The Institute, Falcon…"

**Chapter 42**

"The Institute?" Falcon repeated, the shock obvious in his voice. "Blaze, Why did you come here? What have you done?"

"I had to find a cure, Falcon," I replied, but letting him know how much I regretted the choice, "I had to save them. The only people who knew enough about the Altered were the whitecoats. I need a sample of Skye's and Max's blood. Can you take me back? Can you take me home?"

"That may not be the best Idea right now," Falcon replied. "We don't have a home to return to any more. Drake found out about it, got everyone out of the house. He managed to save Max and Skye as well. But the others in the area weren't so lucky."

"What are you talking about, Falcon?" I asked, puzzled. "It's been less than a day since I arrived here, what is going on above the surface?"

"You haven't seen the news have you?" Falcon replied. "People are afraid of the Virus, which is spreading beyond our country's borders. They declared war on America, every country beyond these borders declared war on us. They want to destroy the virus before it spreads. Russia was the first to launch, followed by China, then the rest. About two hours ago, the first missiles struck. One destroyed our home. Drake managed to warn as many people as he could as soon as he found out. It's the Armageddon out there, Blaze. Fire is almost literally falling from the skies. This has gone way beyond control now."

"Falcon," I replied upon hearing the news, "Get everyone here, now. This place is sheltered for such emergencies. Get everyone and bring them here. I don't care what it takes, just do it."

_I saw this coming,_ I thought, _I knew this would happen, so why didn't I stop it? Why didn't I stop it while I had the chance?_ To those questions I had no answer, but I sure hoped like heck things wouldn't get worse; but knowing things, they most likely will. Falcon grabbed me and we disappeared from the room. Next thing I knew we were in a cave a few miles outside out town. I looked out the opening and watched as the landscape burnt. These were only the conventional missiles. The nukes hadn't been launched yet, but sooner or later they will be, and God help anyone who would be caught outside of a fallout shelter when they hit home.

All this was happening, because some old pompous Secretary of Defense was afraid of change, all because he felt a need to stop our population rivaling humanity. If he ever survives any of this, he better hope I never see him again. Otherwise I will kill him, with my own two hands. I would gladly break his neck for what he did to our world. Inside my heart, I knew I would do it without a second thought. I would make sure he paid for every single death as if it was his fault for each one. In truth, it didn't matter if they died from the disease, the missiles, or the radiation from the nukes, he would pay for every death, because he started this entire mess. And he'll pay for it.

A hand collided with my face and sent me reeling backwards. Flame stood in front of me with her hand raised to slap me again, but this time I got there first and stopped her.

"Glad you're still alive," I replied to the slap, "And I'm glad to see you all haven't lost your touch. Now if you don't mind, we have work to do. Get everything prepared. When the nukes fall, nowhere above ground will be safe for years afterwards…"

**Chapter 43**

"Did you just say Nukes?" Dark asked, "As in Nuclear Warheads? We need to find an underground shelter… now. They had the shelters built about five years ago, after the scare of 2016, when the world nearly broke out into a nuclear war. It's sheltered from Radiation and can sustain a population of people for years underground. They have farms, sleeping quarters, medical facilities, pretty much an underground city."

"And how do you know about them?" Flame asked. "It's not like we have access to them twenty-four-seven. I doubt they will let any Altered into the Shelters."

"The Altered managed to liberate a shelter not far from here when the missiles were first launched," Dark replied. "It's fully supplied and can shelter pretty much what is left of our kind. We need to get survivors in there now!"

"Enough!" I shouted, "Dark, Drake, get everyone you can find and start getting them into that shelter. Make sure you have people guarding it against anyone trying to take it over again. The Humans won't share their shelters with us, we won't let them get the only hope of survival that we have. The survivors will be those that are immune to the Disease. Flame, Terra, Get Skye and Max to the shelter and stick them in the medical facilities. Falcon, you are coming with me." 

"What are we going to do?" Falcon asked.

"I have some unfinished business to attend to," I replied. "First stop, back to the Institute. We're going to get the whitecoats out of there and into the shelter, they can continue doing their research there."

"But Blaze," Falcon replied, "They are whitecoats. Are you sure?" 

"If they want to survive," I replied, "They better behave themselves; same with their Eraser mutts. I want them because they can save Skye and Max. They will also prove to be useful for our health because they are the ones who know the most about us. I'm afraid to say it, but if we want to survive, we need them."

Falcon was silent for a moment, absorbing what I had just said, then nodded. He understood exactly what I was talking about. Like it or not, we were stuck with the whitecoats. And besides, they couldn't go to the human shelters, they are wanted felons, they might as well be one of us. Falcon grabbed my hand and then we were off in a blur of light, passing through the burning landscape at a speed around that of light. When we arrived at The Institute, the Whitecoats and Erasers were waiting for us.

"Do you have the blood vials?" Samantha Reilly asked me.

"Yes," I replied, "But your work won't be completed here."

"We guessed as much," Samantha Reilly replied. "After the building above us was leveled and both our exits were blocked, we decided we would have to get out of here somehow and noted that your friend can teleport… I trust you have somewhere to take us?"

"Yes," I replied, "We have a shelter to take you to. Considering no Human shelter will accept you for your crimes, you have nowhere else to go. So let me make this clear, the only reason why we are keeping you alive is because you can be useful to us. But if you try to do anything to any one of us without our permission we will not hesitate to kill you, understood?"

"I think we understand each other a lot better than you know," Samantha replied. "We expected as much, therefore we have already prepared ourselves for the transfer. All data is saved on hard-drives and the notes and research that isn't Data, we have stored in containers to be transferred. Is that alright?"

"That's fine," I replied, "So long as you can continue your research as soon as you can get to the shelter."

Samantha nodded and got everything they were taking ready to be teleported. It would take us about two trips to get the equipment and people transferred over, but it could be done. I was going to get Falcon to drop me off at the Shelter and I would help evacuate into the Shelter any Altered that had survived. Falcon grabbed hold of everyone that was coming on this trip and then connected a foot with the containers and soon all of us and the containers were traveling back to the shelter.

"My brother was right about you," Samantha said as we arrived, "You are more kind and caring than you know. Thank you for this."

"I may hate whitecoats," I replied," But I'm not heartless. You were Reilly's sister and I owe him for saving my life. So I'm keeping yours safe, even if it's because you can save my life partner. I don't like seeing people suffer."

I walked out of the facility and didn't pay much attention to the shelter as people flooded in through the entrance and exited the shelter into the outside world. I looked out over the burning landscape and the file of Altered that were trudging across the land towards the shelter. Then I felt it, flashes of images. I could see the Nukes being launched, racing through the skies. They were going to be here in twenty minutes. There was no way we could get the people inside in that time, no way…

_**Chapter 44**_

"Drake, Dark," I shouted from the Entrance, "You better hurry up and get them inside. You have ten minutes!"

"What?" Drake exclaimed, "Ten minutes? Twenty would be enough for us to get most of them inside the others would be a few minutes later."

_You have ten minutes to get them all inside and prepare the base for a full lockdown,_ I thought to Drake, _because nuclear warheads from Russia , China, Japan and a couple from England are heading this way. Do you understand? _

Drake mutter curses inside his head and talked to Dark, quickly explaining the situation. They both muttered curses and began to hurry the people into the shelter. I moved off from the shelter, Dark and Drake understanding what I was going to try and do. They were lucky they didn't try and stop me. As I walked away from the shelter I heard the voices of Max and her flock from the other side, felt their strength flow into me and then I felt Max lend me her speed of light flight, something she had told me about, and I heard her whisper good luck to me before they were gone.

_Time to do this, _I thought to myself, _I have to stop those Nukes from reaching their targets. _I opened my wings and launched myself into the air, rushing forward until I was high up into the sky, far above the burning land below. An image flashed into my mind and I saw the first nukes target, Washington DC. I headed towards Washington, activating the speed Max had lent to me, and arrived as I saw the nuke falling from the sky. I threw out a telekinetic Net and caught the nuke before it had reached the target altitude to detonate. I used my power and flung it back into the sky, then followed it with a telekinetic blast, sending it into orbit above the earth. It would detonate, no lies about that, but I had stalled it to give us more time.

I saw the second target and began to head that way when I felt, more than saw something going on at an apparently abandoned Military installation. _What is it with people and seemingly abandoned buildings? _I didn't have time to check out the activity, I had to stop that nuke from landing, but I couldn't. I couldn't move. There was a pressure in the air that kept me from moving, a force that didn't want me to stop that nuke, no matter how hard I pushed against it, I couldn't get there.

Even from here I saw the blast in Los Angeles, saw the mushroom cloud extending into the air as the explosion ripped through the air. It was a few minutes before the shockwave ripped across where I was located and I was hurled through the air. Once it passed I focused on finding the other nukes, but nothing was coming, something was messing with my power. The dead weren't whispering anymore, they were watching silently… waiting for something. Then I saw…

_A massive structure rises out of a bunker in the middle of the Nevada desert, A spire of cool dark metal, black in color with the look of oil spread over the surface. I rises out of the ground, followed buy smaller versions of the same spire, although smaller in size. All of these are connected around a central dish the rises out of the ground, covered in a reflective substance. There is a dull rumbling and the smaller spires lift from the ground blasted skywards on tails of smoke and flame. The central spire now stands in the centre of the dish, pointing skywards. It is a few moments before anything happens, then felt, more than seen or heard, a pulse of power was fired from the spire into orbit, hitting one of the spires and spreading out around the world. Altered everywhere felt the blanket of energy that covered the world. It was a few seconds before the effects set in. The nukes faltered, losing their power and fell from the sky to land harmlessly into the landscape below them. Nuclear power plants shut down for no apparent reason, plunging the world into darkness. Radio communications stop functioning properly as the blanket interferes with the signals. _

A name runs through my head as this takes place, Project N-Jammer, a device designed to interfere with nuclear fission and fusion reactions all across the globe, effectively making all nuclear devices, such as nukes and nuclear power stations unusable. Communications would be capable, but only to certain ranges due to the interference caused by the N-Jammer. Another images flashed through my mind as I saw what was still going to happen. The other countries missile center's backup generators come online and the leader see Nuclear is out of the question. They find Conventional missiles can still be launched and launch them all, determined to wipe out every trace of the disease before it spreads, but they don't realize, it's already too late; the virus was airborne. Although only in America at the moment, it would eventually spread across the globe, and the destruction of a country would be for nothing. Whoever was left would destroy what remained of the world as they tried to destroy something that couldn't be destroyed…

**Epilogue**

The nuke that had landed in Los Angeles made the surface hazardous. The Radioactive fallout had spread over America, killing hundreds of people. Thousands weren't possible. The Virus had killed almost all of America's population and had left under a thousand humans still alive, under five hundred Altered had survived and the virus had spread beyond its borders. Many more were lost to the radiation, reducing the populations further, less that six hundred humans survived the radiation, less than three hundred Altered survived. The surface was barren; the conventional missiles destroyed anything within their blast radius. America was gone; the countries around the world were gone, fallen to the chaos. Humanity had reduced itself to an endangered species. The atmosphere was ridden with radiation from the nukes America had launched back at Russia, China and England, before the N-Jammer was activated. The N-Jammer base on the ground got destroyed by a missile, but the satellites in orbit remained functioning.

Everyone who had survived the virus had gone into hiding in the shelters when the first strikes began. Communications were lost with other shelters and everyone became isolated from each other. The shelters became self-sufficient, taking care of themselves and those in the shelter with them. Food was grown and stored from the fields; science was taken care of by scientists, helping improve our lives. Technology still worked down here, sheltered from the N-Jammer satellites. It was able to support our communities and create artificial environments for the crops and the animals, but since the communications dishes were above surface all communications were knocked out. Animals had been born and raised in these shelters for years. That was the first thing the survivors had noticed, the Animals. It looked like the shelters had been built because someone was afraid something like this might happen.

_**Journal Entry: September 10 2035:** I found this old journal of mine at last. I've been searching for it for about five years now. Wondered what had happened to it. It's been fourteen years since my last entry. Fourteen years since that tragic day. People have grown accustomed to living in the shelters, and we now call shelter seventeen home, although we changed the name. We call it Savior city. Anyway to recap the past fourteen years… question is where to begin? ___

_After the N-Jammer's launch, we managed to gain the time we needed to get everyone here. We sealed the doors and came down here to start our new lives. A new Council was formed from the remaining five survivors from the previous council. I was elected to be the head of the council as I knew what was going on more than other people did, but I refused. The survivors wouldn't hear it. The Whitecoats I had helped became invaluable to us and, because of a lab accident, they became Altered themselves. After the N-Jammers had gone up, all communications had been disrupted, but eventually we had found ways around that. Our previous estimations as to the humans were close. There were less than a thousand left in America alone._

"You found that old thing at last?" I heard Skye say from the door and stopped writing to look at her.

"Yeah," I replied, "Found it in the old bag of mine. Just finishing an update in it, then I'll be out."

"Max has been causing trouble at school again," Skye replied, "I've got to go sort it out."

"What has she done now?" I asked. Skye shrugged and left me to write again. I turned back to the journal and finished up.

_Guess I forgot to mention that. Samantha pulled through and got the vaccine for Skye. Max beat it before the vaccine was injected into her. I came close to losing Skye. Max has grown up quite well, if a little bit disruptive. Turns out her ability was shape shifting. Who would have thought it? Skye and I had a proper wedding and have been married thirteen years now. Flame and Drake also got married a year later. They had a son who is twelve now. Falcon and Terra are twenty-five and are happily engaged. Drake and Rei are going out now. I now think I know what Falcon was talking about in Dark's apartment fourteen years ago._

_Things have worked out well for us, if you could call this well. We survived, we got the partial happy ending. I got to live my life with Skye, the one I will love for life, but I have a feeling Max's adventure will be starting soon…_


End file.
